The dissertation is a systematic research of mythological discourse of M.A. Asturias's prose starting from his first book "Legends of Guatemala" (1930) up to the last unfinished story "Tree of the Cross" (1974). The analysis is especially focused on artistic embodiment of the transculturation problem and the search of the integration of multicultural identity. Inclusion in this research the works that represent different periods of M.A.Asturias's creative career and demonstrate its cyclic character (mythological-surrealistic prose - "social" prose - return to the mythological-surrealistic style) allowed to investigate the evolution of the author's mythological discourse and his perception of Guatemalan national subject. The research demonstrates a complicated and versatile character of mythological discourse of Asturias, who combined in his texts the discourse of pre-Columbian literature with concepts of surrealism and Spanish baroque. The influence of these artistic and aesthetic systems sometimes isdifficult to differentiate due to the specific hybridizational appropriation of the Mayan mythology from the standpoint of surrealism and appropriation of surrealism from the point of view of Mayan mythology. As for the Spanish baroque, the author has borrowed from it those concepts and ideas that supplemented two previous systems and in total gave an integrated scheme of history of Guatemala (pre-Columbian past - conquest and colony - present). Asturias's approach to the usage of motives and topics of Mayan mythology, its space and time symbols is highly creative. The writer projects himself as a new demiurge and a creator of the "new multilayer imagined realities that replace the reality itself". In "Legends of Guatemala" we can observe the ornamental, to certain extent, reproduction of external attributes of pre-Columbian mythology that meets the expectations of Occidental audience regarding all primitive and exotic. In the following works, like "Men of Maize", "Mirror of Lida Sal", the pre-Columbian mythology plays role of internal infrastructure used as a basis for all the narration. Asturias consciously (on the basis of anthropologic researches) or intuitively managed to embody in its writings the complex and multidimensional cosmos of ancient Maya and the world outlook of modern descendants of "men of maize". The revealed analogues between the Asturias's texts and ancient Mayan literature works such as "Popol Vuh", "Chilam Balam", pre-Columbian poetry of Maya and Aztecs are characterized by the involved associative connection with the prototype texts that have passed through various transformations in the author's imagination. Direct textual borrowings in the form of unchanged phrases are very seldom and are mostly characteristic for "Legends of Guatemala" (1930). The settled model of pre-Columbian texts usage by Asturias is represented in the legend "Sorcerers of Spring Tempest", which was included to this collection in 1948. This model remains almost unchanged up to the last author's writings. The othercomponents of the mythological discourse of Asturias's prose are the analogues between the structure and style of the texts and basic principles of ancient Mayan architecture (the repetition of equal elements in a composition; quantitative build-up, creation of rhythm by these repetitions). He also makes play with canonic motives of Mayan sculpture and painting, using some specific features of this art (sculpture representations as a combination of different objects) for creation of surrealistic images. The analogues between the rhythm of "Legends of Guatemala" and the principles of Mayan architecture and pre-Columbian visual art have been studied for the first time. One of the main Asturias's tasks, which is to return the Guatemalan pre-Columbian past from oblivion and secular denial, caused the presence in his texts of dual opposition America-Europe, that was mostly irreconcilable and traumatic in his first book and became softer and more harmonic in "Men of Maize" and "Mirror of Lida Sal". The solution ofthe problem of double identity proposed by Asturias is that the Guatemalan national subject is not purely Spanish or purely Indian, but a hybrid one, in which both its parts must be equal. Actually, Asturias's prose is an attempt to establish an equal relationship between different parts of its mestizo Spanish-Indian identity which, however, has not been completely successful. Asturias seems to be closer than ever to the solution of this problem in the novel "Man of Maize", which ends with the restoration of harmony in the life of one of its main characters and his return to the soil. Writer's vision of Guatemalan national subject has evolved from vertical (hierarchic) model in "Legends of Guatemala" represented by a syncretic image of town-tower up to horizontal juxtaposition in the "Mirror of Lida Sal" represented in the "annexions-modifications-juxtaposition" model (sp. anexiones-modificaciones-yuxtaposiciуn). At the same time, the process of transculturation is not finished yet in Latin America and the tension between "want to be" and "can be" is still apparent in the cultural and social life of the continent.
