Robinsonady w prozie Aleksandra Bielajewa
Robinsonade in the prose of Alexander Belyaev

Summary/Abstract: The paper will present the phenomenon of Robinsonade in Russian literature of the first halfof the twentieth century on the example of the work of fantasy writer Alexander Belyaev. Rob-insonades is a variety of novel spread under the influence of D. Defoe’s „Robinson Crusoe”(1719), whose plot scheme (a castaway shaping the conditions of civilised life and a miniaturehuman community on a desert island) was later taken up and paraphrased by numerous imi-tators in both the adventure novel and the utopian novel. Through the centuries, however, theboundaries of the concept have expanded considerably. The main aim of the paper is to showthat some of Belyaev’s works meet the requirements to be described as robinsonades. It willalso be shown that robinsonade is a diverse phenomenon. In Belyaev’s prose one can distin-guish between model robinsonade, cosmic robinsonade and forest robinsonade. The analysiswill be based on the methodology developed by narratology. Thus, the plot patterns of the an-alysed works will be studied in relation to the original – „The Cases of Robinson Crusoe”. Thestudy of plot patterns need not be limited to indicating the presence of specific plot elements inthe structure of the selected work, but may generate a number of additional questions.

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