Abstract
The article examines the poetics of the title of a literary work as a key element of the artistic structure of Kemel Tokayev’s novel “The Soldier Went to War.” Drawing on Yuri Lotman’s ideas about the title as a semiotic “key” to the text, the author explores how the novel’s title concentrates its ideological and emotional content and determines the direction of reader interpretation. The object of the study is the literary text of the novel, while the subject includes the poetic and meaning-forming functions of its title, which shape the reader’s perception and the overall structure of the work. The aim of the research is to identify how the title contributes to forming the thematic core of the text, organizes the composition, and defines the vectors of semantic perception. In accordance with this aim, the study sets the following tasks: to analyze the semantics of the key words in the title; to characterize its role in creating the historical and cultural context; to determine the connection between the title and the motivational system of the novel; to establish its influence on the formation of the protagonist’s image and the development of the plot; and to trace the transformation of the title’s meanings as the narrative unfolds. The research is based on the hypothesis that the title “The Soldier Went to War” performs not only a nominative but also a conceptually organizing function: it sets the framework for interpretation, encodes the central conflict, and defines the emotional and existential tone of the narrative. It is assumed that the title acts as a kind of prologue to the semantic structure of the novel, initiating the reading process as a movement from a literal event toward a multilayered comprehension of a human fate in wartime.