The article examines the poetics of the comic in the early prose of the classic Mari literature writer M. Shketan, proposing a typology of characters in one of his stories from the 1920s with a comedic component; it describes the motifs, speech markers, and plot functions of comedic characters; it explores ways in which the author models social norms and behavioral deviations; it shows that comedy is formed through storytelling style, collective assessment, and a shift in causality. The aspects of the comic in Shketan's short prose and in Mari literature, in general, has not been sufficiently studied; addressing it in this article determines the relevance and scientific novelty of the research. The aim of the study is to identify and describe types of comedic characters in Shketan's early prose based on four personality models (active, conservative, indifferent, everyday) and to show how each participates in the formation of the comedic effect. The specific material for the study is Shketan's story "Araka Kochkyn" (Vodka Has Consumed), chosen for analysis as a representative example of the writer's early prose with a comedic component. The typology of comedic characters proposed by the authors of the article can be seen as a working model for further study of the poetics of the comic in Shketan's short prose in structural-semantic and comparative-typological terms. It is asserted that the comic in Shketan's work is formed at the boundary between humor and satire; it is significantly character-driven and is not exhausted by "random absurdity," but emerges as a consequence of stable personal attitudes that come into conflict with reality and social norms; in this way, personality types serve as carriers of various methods of explaining and evaluating events. The types of characters we have identified are not isolated but form a stable connection (the active personality initiates action; the conservative legitimates the "norm," which leads to trouble; the indifferent records the event as a rumor/commentary; the everyday summarizes and returns the narrative to the plane of material responsibility), making the comic in Shketan's work function as a form of social-moral critique and simultaneously as a means of artistic typification of the village world of the early 20th century.
Sergeev et al. (Sun,) studied this question.