From Soviet Film to Post-Soviet Novel: Zaira Arsenishvili’s "Woe is Life: Kakhetian Chronicles" as a Case of Ideological Emancipation

Abstract

The article discusses the film by Georgian director ­Lana Gogoberidze The Day is Longer than Night, and the novel by Georgian writer Zaira Arsenishvili Woe is Life: Kakhetian Chronicles. The research was conducted with the assumption that the fictional text is the intermediate adaptation of the film – its “novelized” version.

The purpose of the article is to study the changes in representation of over 19 years of Soviet sociopolitical issues as a result of intermedial transposition, in conditions of the presence and then absence of ideological censorship, from the film to the novel.

The research is based on the theories of recognized scientists in the sphere of intermediality, in particular, the typologies of Werner Wolf and Irina Rajewsky. Through studying the objects of research with an intermedial approach, it was established that in both media products, the event that caused the conflict – the Soviet revolution – is identified with trauma. In transforming the source medium into the target one, the critical attitude to the revolution did not change. In the source it is implied, while in the adaptation it is openly revealed. Revolution is defeated in both the creative world of the source and in its adaptation: in the film by Giorgi’s return, and in the novel by the restoration of justice, realized by the principle of “paying back”.