ДЕТЕКТИВНИЙ ЖАНР У КИТАЙСЬКІЙ ЛІТЕРАТУРІ: ІСТОРІЯ ВИНИКНЕННЯ І ОСОБЛИВОСТІ СТАНОВЛЕННЯ

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the history of the rise, formation and development of the detective genre in the Chinese literature. It examines the influence of national traditions and cultural peculiarities on the formation of Chinese detective stories, highlights key stages in the genre’s development, the impact of Western European literature and its translations on the creation of Chinese detective stories, and identifies characteristic features of Chinese detective. It is established that the first detective stories were gong’an, the plot of which describes the course of a judicial process. We analyze the structure of gong’an, the components of which are the facts of a judicial case, the judicial process and involve the disclosure of the crime and the court’s decision. A distinctive feature of these stories is the involvement of supernatural forces in the investigation process. During the Qing Dynasty, the popularity of stories about judicial cases reached its peak, but later, due to the political situation in the country, their popularity declined. There is a tendency to translate Western detective literature as an impulse to create unique detective stories based on the Western model. The article noted the positive role of periodicals, in which detective stories were published, and it contributed to the popularization of the detective genre among the public. The “Golden Age” of Chinese detective literature is considered to be the 1920s-1940s when a number of well-known Chinese detective fiction authors emerged. Their detective stories can be understood as a kind of imitation of the Western detective tradition, but they acquired specific characteristics and formed a distinctive Chinese detective genre, which is a promising area for literary research.