Третият Рим: дистопия и архаика като история на настоящето в Пътешествие до Елевсина на Виктор Пелевин
The Third Rome: Dystopia and Archaism as History of the Present in Victor Pelevin’s Journey to Eleusis
Author(s): Vladimir SabourinSubject(s): History, Language and Literature Studies, Essay|Book Review |Scientific Life, Fiction, Studies of Literature, Recent History (1900 till today), Novel, Comparative Study of Literature, Russian Literature, Present Times (2010 - today)
Published by: Софийски университет »Св. Климент Охридски«
Keywords: Russian dystopian literature; 21th century; archaism; retro-dystopia; The Third Rome; Victor Pelevin
Summary/Abstract: This article is an introduction to the close reading of Victor Pelevin’s novel Journey to Eleusis (2023) as a paradigmatical example of the Russian dystopian literature from the beginning of the 21th century. Journey to Eleusis is the final part of a trilogy whose previous installments include the collection of short novels Transhumanism Inc. (2021) that set the dystopian universe, and the sequel KGBT+ (2022) taking place already in the wartime sociopolitical reality. I argue that starting with Vladimir Sorokin’s Blue Lard (1999) the contemporary Russian dystopia intertwines idiosyncratically futurism and archaism into a retro-dystopian frame, which I discern in Pelevin’s trilogy. As I view it, this specific dystopian blend aims at the representation of a history of the present of the Putin era with its neo-totalitarian version of the Russian imperial concept of the “Third Rome” which is crucial to Journey to Eleusis.
Journal: Colloquia Comparativa Litterarum
- Issue Year: 10/2024
- Issue No: 1
- Page Range: 141-154
- Page Count: 14
- Language: Bulgarian
