LONDON AND MOSCOW – A COLLISION OF CIVILISATIONS Cover Image

ЛОНДОН И МОСКВА – СУДАР ЦИВИЛИЗАЦИЈА
LONDON AND MOSCOW – A COLLISION OF CIVILISATIONS

Author(s): Jelena V. Aleksov
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Serbian Literature, Philology
Published by: Универзитет у Крагујевцу
Keywords: Crnjanski;Bulgakov;the idea of the city;London;Moscow;A Novel about London;The Master and Margarita

Summary/Abstract: This paper aims to bring closer the perception of the idea of the city through the presentation of two leading modern cities, Crnjanski’s London and Bulgakov’s Moscow, as the collision of two civilizations, which confirms that the leading idea of modern society is providing financial security. By comparing the two worlds, Crnjanski’s framework of London as a terrible, dark, large area of Babylon lined with high impenetrable walls, and Bulgakov’s pictures of Moscow in the late twenties of the twentieth century, described as a version of hell, we are facing metropolises where the evil of cosmic proportions is lurking. On one hand, we are introduced to the everyday life of Moscow and its people, vain and corrupt atheists, who roam the streets with their eyes closed and live in a society in which not only the conflict of good and evil is shown, but also the conflict of man and the absurd, out of which issues of power of acceptance or rejection of the absurd as the meaning of life emerge. On the other hand, residents of Moscow, who are willing to harm any individual for their own personal benefit, are analogous to Londoners, who turned everything into trade, especially religion, who are wallowed in perversion, spiritually distorted society, ready to undergo various transformations in order to gain respect and security in society. Through the interweaving of the real and the unreal, dream and reality, stepping through big intertwined streets of Moscow and luxurious streets of London, where people, like ants, are swarming all over the place, we come to the fact that the differences between the so-called dark West and sunny, illuminated East are increasingly merging into their similarities. In the clash of the two metropolises, located in different parts of the world, ideals, beliefs, customs and daily habits are being shattered.

  • Issue Year: XVII/2016
  • Issue No: 60
  • Page Range: 223-234
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: Serbian
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