Abstract
The article analyzes a novel of Satimzhan Sanbaev “White Aruana” with regards to the semantic layers encoded in symbols and metaphors inherent in the mentality of the Kazakh people. The novel had been researched by many literary critics as one of the bright stories of socialist realism, but has never been considered in psychoanalytical aspect and in the frame of colonial discourse. The theme of this article is a psychology and tragedy of the disabled war veteran and colonial discourse transmitted through an image of Aruana camel as a parallel to the main character, its genesis and interpretation. Texts created in Soviet times by representatives of Turkic culture on the border of a nomadic and sedentary lifestyle still need proper interpretation in terms of colonial discourse and a strategy for encoding meanings in the era of ideological censorship. The story of Satimzhan Sanbaev is considered in the article from the point of view of literary psychoanalysis and intertextuality, the semantic layers of the work are analyzed in the aspect of linguistic bilingualism. The article traces how the writer realizes his plan using the symbols and metaphors of nomadic culture, revealing the image and significance of the totem animal. The aim of the study, therefore, is to identify the semantics and functions of poetics that implements the theme in the text of the writer.