Andrei Bitov’s novella “Birds, or New Information about Man” as a synergetic discourse

Abstract

The aim of the research is to conceptualize Andrei Bitov’s novella “Birds, or New Information about Man” as a synergetic discourse that reveals the non-linear dynamics of the relationship between man, nature, and text. The scientific novelty of the paper is driven by the necessity to develop methods in literary studies for a holistic analysis of non-linear literary works. For the first time, Bitov’s work is examined within a synergetic paradigm as a phenomenon of the semiosphere. The synergetic meta-methodology has made it possible to move beyond the debate regarding the genre and stylistic affiliation of Bitov’s works to a specific movement (realism, postmodernism, eco-postmodernism) and to prove the status of a contemporary literary text as an open dynamic system organized around key semantic dominants. Incorporating artistic discourse into the synergetic paradigm allows for the explicating of the uniqueness of the author’s individual style. The article examines Bitov’s novella as a synergetic discourse, identifying textual markers of non-linearity, fractality, and self-organization in the work’s artistic structure. As a result of the study, it is proven that the analysis of such texts, emerging at the intersection of various aesthetic codes and sign systems, requires accounting for their hybrid nature and capacity for self-organization. The synergetic paradigm makes it possible to overcome the isolation of heterogeneous poetological layers within non-linear discourse and to uncover the mechanisms of meaning generation within it.