“There is still people’s memory”. Plenty of “little” witnesses of history in Anatoly Kuznetsov’s documentary novel Babi Yar

Antoni Bortnowski

Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu

Abstract

The article is devoted to the specificity of the perception of the events of World War II in Kiev, including the tragedy of Babi Yar. The genocide of the Jews in Kiev becomes the focal point of Anatoly Kuznetsov’s documentary novel and part of a broader reflection on the nature of totalitarian systems (Nazi and Soviet). Babi Yar as an ego - documentary shows the cruelty of war from the perspective of ordinary people, focusing on its local dimension. The greatest emphasis in the article is placed on the analysis of the specificity of the narrative in the documentary novel (роман -документ) Babi Yar, in which we deal with the voice of a mature narrator, the perspective of a small boy and the stories of war victims integrated into the structure of the novel. They create a characteristic polyphony in the novel, which becomes not only the testimony of one person, but also, in accordance with the clearly formulated idea of the writer himself, the “voice” of the “little people”, an appeal for them to be remembered in the face of the “great” history that overshadows the tragedy of an individual.

Keywords:

Babi Yar, ego - document, “little people”, double narration, documentary novel