The article reveals the specific mechanisms of literary reconstruction of historical memory regarding the events of the Manchurian plague epidemic of 1910–1911, as interpreted in the novel "White Snow, Black Crows" by the Chinese writer Chi Zijian. The aim of the study is to identify, through a detailed analysis of the novel's narrative strategies, the ways of representing mass and individual mortality, the functions of conflicts (both intercultural and those between the individual and society), and the specificity of literary narrative in comparison with historical documents, the precise mechanisms by which the author reconstructs the space of historical memory within the fictional world of her novel. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that the novel proposed as the object of analysis has not previously been examined from the perspective of the reconstruction of historical memory through literary fiction. The results obtained demonstrate that the main mechanisms of literary reconstruction include micronarration, the juxtaposition of group and individual deaths, the representation of cultural-political conflicts and other conflicts between the individual and the collective, as well as the substitution of quantitative accuracy with qualitative accuracy. It is concluded that literary narrative, compared to historical narrative, has the ability to restore voice and human dignity to those who have been levelled by official discourse that follows statistics and catalogues facts. Turning to novels about catastrophic events contributes to a reinterpretation of new experience, an awareness of the boundaries of national, cultural, and universal human identity, and the rehabilitation of the ordinary person whose destiny unfolds against the backdrop of global historical catastrophes.
Jingtao Tong (Wed,) studied this question.