Isapchuk I. Dichotomy of the Province and Metropolis in the Prose of Ingeborg Bachmann

The research develops the analysis of the prose of the outstanding Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-1973). The attention is being paid to the time-space problems of the author's creative work with a focus on the cultural and historical conditions of the Austrian State's formation after the Second World War. The study examines the collections "The Thirtieth Year" (1961), "Simultan" (1972), three novels from the cycle "Death Styles" ("Requiem for Fanny Goldmann", "The Book of Franza", "Malina"), also stories "The Cross of Honditsch" (1943/1944) and "Seeing the Sights of an Old City" (1971) in the aspect of understanding the urban discourse, particularly of Vienna and Klagenfurt. The connections between the toposes within the country (province - metropolis) and between the specific loci (cultural borderland Carinthia - the town of Klagenfurt) are analysed in the dichotomous model. The opposition "centre and periphery" is represented in the theoretical and methodological aspects, the province is considered as a social and cultural phenomenon in the context of the similar notions (provincialism, provinciality, marginality). The attention is also focused on the discussion on the city / town in the modern literary criticism. The genesis of the phenomenon "province" is depicted through the peculiarities of the Austrian regional literature of the 20th century. The Austrian spiritual space in writer's prose is shown as a complex of complicated and interrelated concepts: the "Habsburg myth", Austrofascism, the unsolved historical past, the conformists' and consumers' society (stories "Three Paths to the Lake", "Among Murderers and Mads", short-story "A Business with Dreams"). The utopian tendency of the author's inset legend "The Mysteries of the Princess of Kagran" from the novel "Malina" is regarded as an alternative to contemporaneity of I. Bachmann. The Austrian province is analysed on the example of the multicultural borderland Carinthia, which belongs to one of the constitutive elements in writer's life and work and is correlated with the image of the former Habsburg Monarchy as a symbol of the peaceful coexistence of many nations. The attention is drawn to the fictional toponym Galicien that causes by its name a lot of associations and is considered as an utopian space with the nostalgic tinge. Vienna by I. Bachmann is examined with the usage of cultural memory and memory space theory. Autobiographical elements, presented in author's prose, highlight the controversial image of this metropolis in the middle of the 20th century. The post-war atmosphere of Vienna explains more exactly the clich?d representation of the cultural metropolis. At the same time the periphery embodies the opposite stereotypical views towards the center from the idyllic childhood topos to the spiritual boondocks. Thus, the Austrian spiritual space is regarded as a key component in the prose of I. Bachmann, appearing primarily in the depiction of relations in the society in the metropolis and province. The portraying of human fates mosaic shows Vienna within the range of images from the "city without warranty" to "the killing arena". The abstraction from the complicated contemporaneity takes place in form of imagined escape to the utopian space, represented by the Austrian province Carinthia. But this topos is also characterized through the immanent dichotomy - the locus of cultural borderland with nostalgic idealized image in the context of the author's model the "House of Austria" and the ambivalent attitude to the Klagenfurt of that time as a typical provincial town. The contradictory image of Klagenfurt, opposing to the idealized image of Carinthia, form the generalized image of the Austrian province.