Komar ‘Mosquito’ as an Inspirator and Co-author of G. R. Derzhavin, A. Parschikov, Yu. Arabov

The article considers Komar (a mosquito) as a satirical character, traditionally
associated with ideas of harmfulness, cruelty, militancy, greed and
bragging in literature and folklore, which is characteristic of both 18th-century
poetry and modern poetic works. The author analyzes the image of Komar
in the titles of poems-dedications by G. Derzhavin, A. Parshchikov and
Yu. Arabov, determines its roles, subject and object status and categorical
meaning of its name. Furthermore, the article considers genre features and
quasi-genre ironic semantics of the laudatory words and odes to Komar. The
authors explore intertextual connections of ‘mosquito’ texts, where Komar
is portrayed as a messenger of eros, a war initiator, a warrior and an army
leader, an enemy in a battle, a nobleman and a tormentor of the nobles, a
tyrant and a victim at the same time. It appears in the form of a warship and
an airplane, a boomerang, a welding machine and a broken book. The study
pays particular attention to the incestual motives, which are refl ected in the
interweaving of quotations and allusions. The author comes to the conclusion
that Komar can be not only an object of poetic refl ection, but also the
subject of many poetic statements, projecting the same ideas as the poets.