Abstract
Belarusian author Ales Adamovich is remembered mainly as the precursor of Svetlana Alexievich and his own work has yet to be discovered by scholars. Beside using diferent techniques of montage on various types of authentic documents, in two of his novels the writer also experimented with mutual blending of the factual and the fictional writing.
In my paper I would like to show, on an interpretation of the novel The Chasteners (1980), how even these seemingly strictly formal literary techniques can contribute to the meaning of the novel. The analyzed text is distinctly heterogeneous, consisting of excerpts of court testimonies, memories, period documents and internal monologues of different characters.
Dealing with this seemingly disparate collage, I chose to base my interpretation on Peter Burger's concept of allegory, originally developed on the example of avant-garde art, which I believe can nevertheless be applied as a more general concept. The constitutive elements of the allegory, especially fragmentarization and gradual disintegration of the coherence of the text help to reinforce the main theme of the novel - the loss of the authenticity of the human existence of the heroes of the novel, members of The Dirlewanger Brigade operating in Belarus during the World War II.