TWO NOVELS ABOUT THE FIRST WORLD WAR:
«ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT» BY E.M. REMARK AND
«HEAVY DIVISION» BY A. LEBEDENKO

The article is devoted to the comparative analysis of the structure of the main characters in the
novel «All Quiet On the Western front» (1929) by a classic of the European war prose about
the First world war Erich Maria Remarque and the novel by a Russian war writer Alexander
Lebedenko «Heavy division» (1932–1933). If Remarque’ books are familiar to the public, not
only abroad but in our country too, Lebedenko’s «Heavy division» is less known now, although it
is one of the few works about the First world war in the Russian literature (along with the «The
Quiet Don» by M. Sholokhov, «The Ordeal» by A. Tolstoy, etc.). The presented comparative
analysis is based on the narrative model of «initiation», which is regarded as the basis of war
prose. In the course of comparative studies the events that implement the motif-model (e.g., death,
comparig past and present, front-line friendship, social adaptation, etc.) are identified at the appropriate
stages of the «initiation» of the literary hero. It is based on the traditional (three-part)
scenario of initiation whereby the initiated is removed from the people, endured to the deathtrasformation,
and then reborn as a different person. It was found that if the medieval epics were
characterized by the transformation of a participant of the war in the image of the literary hero
(for example, in Spanish and French poems), in the works by E. M. Remarque and A. Lebedenko,
the motif of rebirth in the core of the model is replaced by a motif of frustration in what is happening
around (which is one of the starting points to the beginning of the literature of «the lost
generation»). In addition, the motif of a symbolic death, which was originally in the core of the
model, does not change its position. Thus it acquires a special plot-function as it cannot be more
(because of the change of the functions) associated with the rebirth of the literay hero's image, and
is implemented together with the motif of meeting with the enemy. The stages of initiation are
also changed in the development of the war prose. The initial stages (removal of people, symbolic
death, rebirth) are transformed in the stages of growing up, frontline everyday life and rebirth.
The result of the analysis is a kind of invariant of the plot-model, which is repeated in each of
the texts under consideration and exists, thus, in each of the national literatures, indicating a certain
sketchiness, which is dictated by a literary tradition.