ALTERNATIVE STORY IN OLES BERDNYK'S NOVEL "DAZHBOG'S CAMERTON"

The article considers the specificity of the use of genre attributions of alternative story in Oles Berdnyk's novel "Dazhbog's Camerton". Despite the great interest of domestic scholars in the genre of alternative story, the work of a leading representative of Ukrainian fiction, a prominent philosopher and futurologist remained out of the attention of literary critics concerning the presence of the genre features. Therefore, it is necessary to find out the peculiarities of the use of these features in the novel, their functions in the text, and the influence of the author's peculiar worldview. The material of the research was Oles Berdnyk's novel, as well as the phenomenon of alternative story as a genre of fiction. This helped to determine exactly how the author uses the genre attributions of alternative story, how the description of variable story fits into the novel, and what role it plays. The method of textual analysis was used as research method. Modern theories of alternative story and various branches of knowledge and study of its manifestations in Ukrainian prose, including postmodern, are used as a basis for the research. Observations of the text of Oles Berdnyk's novel "Dazhbog's Camerton" and his other works, in particular the novel "Star Corsair", allowed to collect a lot of factual material, which became the basis for defining the features and functions of the author's parallel reality. Thus, it turned out that Oles Berdnyk uses in the novel the method of an image of an alternative story and the method of an accidental journey in order to enliven the plot, enriching it with peripeties, to more fully outline the characters and express their own philosophical and worldview beliefs. The question of studying alternative story in Oles Berdnyk's work still needs further research, in particular, of other author's novels in this aspect.