Несколько замечаний о семантике еды в русской литературе

Abstract

Various forms and aspects of food are the interest study field not only of culture and literature, but also physiology, philosophy, theology and politics. A man does not only exists thanks to food and drink in their physical form. There is also some “spiritual food” that has a significant influence on our everyday life; for instance, music or literature. Eating means also complying with some bans from administering some products. Those bans and restrictions concern some rituals, beliefs and fasts. The spiritual aspect of culinary is presented in an interesting way by Ivan Shmelov in his work entitled “Year of the Lord”. The characters have built up their lives on robust fundaments of prayer and proper nutrition, bearing in mind that this combination will reinforce both their spiritual and physical power. The metaphysical and spiritual attitudes towards food can be observed in writings of Vladimir Sorokin, a post-modern writer. Sorokin also touches upon a matter of cannibalism. Another important issue is presented by Vasily Grossman who writes about the problem of hunger. In his work entitled “Everything flows”, the author showed an image of Ukrainian people, suffering from hunger which was caused by strict politics from 1930–1933. The works analyzed in the article evidence polivalency of the images of food in Russian literature.