Lesson summary on the topic "review of the literature of the last decade." Review of domestic and modern literature Russian literature of recent years
1. Introduction
2. The search for a systematic analysis of the modern literary process.
3. Hypertextuality of the latest Russian literature
4. The role of the writer's creative individuality in shaping the literary situation.
5. Conclusion.
- Today, in the depths of the modern literary process, such phenomena and trends as avant-garde and post-avant-garde, modern and postmodern, surrealism, perssionism,
neo-sentimentalism, meterialism, social art, conceptualism, etc.
- Literature voluntarily resigned itself
the authority to act as a mouthpiece
public opinion and the educator of human souls, and the place of goodies-lighthouses was taken by homeless people, alcoholics, murderers and representatives of ancient professions.
- If in 1986 the most books read according to the survey of "Book Review": "Ulysses" by J. Joyce, "1984" by J. Orwell, "Iron Woman" by N. Berberova, then in 1995
in the bestseller lists there is already a different literature: "Profession-killer", "Companions of the wolfhound", "Cop nasty." Such an orientation of the mass reader has become the most acute problem of both school and university teaching of literature.
Morning
Veniamin Erofeev
Have you ever seen the dawn? Have you ever watched the sun rise slowly, as if with incredible weight? When the first rays begin to dissipate the darkness, liquefying and destroying it. When the sky turns from black to blue... in a few hours. And when, nevertheless, the first rays of the sun, which has just peeked out from behind the horizon, cut the sky - you don’t think about anything and you don’t listen to anything. You just look. Because you won't see it anywhere else. And when you come to your senses, you wonder - why did you come back? Why aren't you there? What have you forgotten here?
The revitalization of the creativity of female writers at the end of the century is an objective and significant fact. Just as the beginning of the twentieth century was marked by the revival of women's poetry, and modernism became a liberating element for the work of Russian writers who brought Silver Age freedom of feelings, individualism and subtle aestheticism, and the end
The century passes largely under the sign of the aesthetic discoveries of women writers.
A special place in the genre of form creation is occupied by dystopia. The evolution of dystopia, considered only in the period from the 1990s to the end of the 20th century, shows how complex and branched the picture of genre mobility is. Losing formal cruel features, it is enriched by new qualities, the main of which is becoming a kind of worldview.
A complex picture of aesthetic dispersion is complemented by the situation in the Russian poetry of the end centuries. It is generally accepted that prose dominates the modern literary process. During last decade poetry has evolved from a state of almost complete booklessness to a position where bookshelves and bookstore counters sag under the weight of poetry collections published either for the author's or sponsorship in editions of 300-500 copies. Poetry bears the same burden of time, the same striving to enter new specific zones of creativity. Poetry, more painfully than prose, feels the loss of the reader's attention, of its own role as an emotional exciter of society.
It is already announced in the titles of novels and is further implemented in tests: “Live in Moscow: manuscript as a novel" D. Pirogov,"Death of Tsar Fedor: micronovel" M.Yu.Druzhnikova, "Erosipedus and other vignettes" by A.Zholkovsky. E. Popov defined the genre of his novel "Chaos" as novel collage, the name of the novel by S. Gandlevsky is "NRZB", by N. Kononov - "gentle theater: shock novel.
Theory:
In the 1950s, a number of decrees were issued in the USSR aimed at improving the quality of dramaturgy. The keen interest of the ruling circles in modern drama was due not only to general ideological considerations, but also to another additional reason. Seasonal repertoire Soviet theater was supposed to consist of thematic sections (Russian classics, foreign classics, a performance dedicated to an anniversary or holiday date, etc.). At least half of the premieres had to be prepared according to modern dramaturgy. It was desirable that the main performances were staged not on light comedy plays, but on works of serious subjects. Under these conditions, most of the country's theaters, concerned about the problem of the original repertoire, were looking for new plays.
General rise theatrical art in the late 1950s led to the rise of dramaturgy. The works of new talented authors appeared, many of which determined the main paths for the development of drama in the coming decades. It was around this period that the identities of three playwrights were formed, whose plays were staged extensively throughout Soviet period- V.Rozova, A.Volodina, A.Arbuzov.
Among the variety of genres and styles that have swept the theater from the late 50s of the XX century up to the present day, in modern dramaturgy one can note the clear predominance of the traditional Russian theater socio-psychological plays. Despite the frankly everyday, even everyday background of the action itself, most of these works had a very deep, multi-layered philosophical and ethical subtext.
Here, the writers actively used such techniques as:
· creating an "undercurrent"
· embedded plot,
· extensions stage space by bringing into play poetic or subject symbols.
· For example, a small flower garden with daisies in A. Vampilov’s play “Last Summer in Chulimsk”, like the old one The Cherry Orchard from the famous drama of the same name by A. Chekhov, becomes for the heroes of Vampilov a kind of test for the ability to love, humanity, love of life.
· Very effective, enhancing the psycho-emotional impact on the viewer, were such techniques as off-stage "voices", sometimes constituting, in fact, a separate plan of action, or fantastic visions of the characters.
The late 1950s - early 1970s were marked by the bright individuality of A. Vampilov. During his short life he wrote only a few plays: Farewell in June, « Eldest son", « Duck hunting», « Provincial jokes, « Twenty minutes with an angel And " The case with the metropolitan page», « Last summer in Chulimsk» and unfinished vaudeville" Incomparable Tips". Returning to Chekhov's aesthetics, Vampilov set the direction for the development of Russian drama in the next two decades.
The task: P Read one of the plays by the proposed authors (A. Volodin, V. Rozov, A. Vampilov) and prepare a brief retelling.
Independent work No. 55-56.
Theory: textbook by V.A. Chalmaev, S.A. Zinin “Literature of the XX CENTURY. Part 2”, pp. 326 – 352.
The task: Based on the theoretical material of the textbook, prepare answers to the following questions:
1. What events literary life recent years do you think are the most important? What books (publications) caught your attention and why? What are the criteria by which you determine the degree of significance of a work of art in contemporary culture?
2. Based on the materials of the site http:// magazines.russ.ru, prepare brief messages about the leading “thick” literary magazines: Novy Mir, Znamya, Zvezda, Oktyabr, Neva. Find information about the creation time of the log, restore it a brief history, describe its place in the literary process of recent decades.
3. Explain how you understand the meaning of concepts postmodernism, postrealism, neonaturalism, neosementalism. Describe the main features of each of these currents.
4. What socio-cultural factors have a decisive influence on the development of modern cultural and social life?
5. Prepare a report on modern Russian literary awards (Booker Prize, Anti-Booker Prize, Apollon Grigoriev Prize, Andrei Bely Prize, Ivan Petrovich Belkin Prize), Pay attention to what literary merits are marked by each prize.
Independent work No. 57
W. Shakespeare "Hamlet", O. Balzac "Gobsek", G. Flaubert "Salambo", I.-V. Goethe. "Faust"
Impressionist poets (Ch. Baudelaire, A. Rimbaud, O. Renoir, P. Mallarme and others).
The task: prepare a review (in writing) of a self-read work foreign literature 19th century.
Approximate review plan:
1. Brief bibliographic information about the book.
2. The meaning of the title of the work.
3.Personal impressions of the read.
4. Features of the plot and composition.
5. The skill of the writer in depicting the characters of the heroes.
6. Language and style of behavior.
7. The main idea of the work.
8. Relevance of the issue.
Independent work No. 58.
E. Hemingway. "The Old Man and the Sea", E.-M. Remarque. "Three comrades", G. Marquez. "One Hundred Years of Solitude", P. Coelho. "Alchemist".
Task: prepare an electronic presentation on one of the proposed topics:
1. Based on the textbook material and additional literature, prepare an overview of E. Hemingway's work. What are the main themes of his works. Expand the content, main theme and idea of the story "The Old Man and the Sea". What works by the author would you recommend reading?
2. Get acquainted with the work of G. - G. Marquez. Expand the content, main themes and idea of the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. What interested you in the writer's work? What works would you recommend?
3. Get acquainted with the work of P. Coelho. Expand the content, main theme and idea of one of the works of this writer. What interested you in the work of this writer? What books would you recommend reading?
APPENDIX No. 1.
Poem analysis scheme
Determine the topic (About what?)
· Lyrical plot: how does the lyrical hero appear at the beginning, does his state change at the end?
What kind of mood is imbued with? Does it change throughout the poem?
The role of the landscape (if any)
What figurative and expressive means does the poet use? (anaphora, metaphors, epithets, comparisons, litote hyperbolas);
Genre of verse (elegy, message, appeal, ode, landscape lyrics, madrigal, epigram, epitaph)
The composition of the poem (is it possible to divide the verse into semantic parts)
Features of the syntactic structure (which sentences on the purpose of the statement and intonation prevail)
The sound structure of the language (the predominance of sounds)
your attitude towards what you read.
Visual and expressive means
· Anaphora - repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of several lines of poetry
· Hyperbola- exaggeration
· Litotes- understatement
· Metaphor- a hidden comparison of an object or phenomenon based on the similarity of features.
· personification- Animation of inanimate objects.
· Oxymoron- a combination of words that are opposite in meaning ( hot snow, living corpse, sweet poison)
· Comparison- comparison of objects according to the principle of their similarity (there is a word how).
· Epithet- figurative definition of an object or phenomenon
Lyric genres:
ü Oh yeah- a solemn lyrical poem glorifying a heroic deed.
ü landscape sketch- a picture of nature.
ü Elegy- a poem riddled with sadness, sad thoughts about life, fate, your dream.
ü Message- addressing another person.
ü Satire- a work that ridicules shortcomings.
ü Epigram- a satirical poem addressed to a certain person.
ü Madrigal – a short poem expressing admiration, a compliment.
ü Epitaph - gravestone inscription in poetic form, dedicated to the deceased.
APPENDIX No. 2.
Theory:
An episode is a part of the text that reveals semantic and compositional unity.
1. Determine the place of this episode in the development of the plot:
At what point in the hero's life do we meet him?
· What do we already know about it and about the author's attitude towards it?
2. Formulate a general impression of what you read, think about what caused it. How does the author create it?
· What is interesting in the events, actions of the hero, in relation to people?
Pay attention to the form of the narration: on whose behalf is it being conducted? What is the advantage of this approach?
Imagine through whose eyes we see the picture?
Think about how the place and time are depicted (in other words, what is the originality of the chronotope)?
Pay attention to the features of word selection, grammatical organization of the text. How do they clarify their understanding of what is happening?
3. Conclude main idea episodes:
What did you learn about the hero? What questions have arisen?
Which one was presented further fate hero?
4. Compare your understanding of the episode with its interpretation in criticism, in other forms of art.
APPENDIX No. 3.
How to make a summary?
Abstract- these are genres of work with a different source. The purpose of this genre is to fix, rework this or that scientific text.
The synopsis is a verbatim extract from the source text. At the same time, the abstract is not a complete rewriting of someone else's text. Usually, when writing an abstract, the source text is first read, the main provisions are highlighted in it, examples are selected, the material is re-arranged, and only then the text of the abstract is drawn up. The abstract can be complete when the work is done with the entire text of the source or incomplete when one or more issues raised in the source are of interest.
The general sequence of actions in compiling a textual summary can be defined as follows:
1. Understand the goals and objectives of note taking.
2. Get acquainted with the work as a whole: read the preface, introduction, table of contents and highlight informationally significant sections of the text.
4. Make a summary, for this:
Consistently highlight the theses in the text and write them down with subsequent argumentation;
Write a brief summary - summarize the text of the abstract, highlight the main content of the material worked out, and evaluate it.
Abstracts can be planned, they are written on the basis of the drafted plan of the article, book. Each question of the plan corresponds to a certain part of the abstract.
APPENDIX No. 4.
Analysis plan for a dramatic work:
2. Poster (list actors): in what main have they already been characterized? How does the arrangement of characters help to guess the nature (social, love, philosophical, psychological) of a dramatic work? We pay attention to the choice of names, the sequence of their presentation, the author's remarks.
3. Design remarks of the play: what "tips" to the director, actors they hide in themselves. What features of the temporal and spatial organization of the action explain the guess about the play's conflict?
4. The first appearance of the main characters. How are they revealed in the system of monologues, dialogues, remarks aside? Are we talking about the external or internal (psychological), conscious or unconscious conflict of the hero?
5. The main stages in the development of a dramatic conflict: its culmination and the outcome of the action. How are they related to the author's idea of the play?
6. Individual scenes of the work are known to you. Try to explain one of them.
References
Main literature:
1. Lebedev Yu. V. Literature. Grade 10. Proc. for educational institutions. At 2 o'clock - M .: « Education »
2. Zinin S.A. Sakharov V. And Literature of the 19th century. Grade 10 Reader for educational institutions. At 2 o'clock - M., OOO « TID « Russian word- RS »
3. Belokurova S.P., Sukhikh I.N. Literature. Grade 10 (basic level): workshop: secondary (complete) general education - M .: Publishing Center "Academy" - 176 p.
4. Zinin S.A. Literature of the XX century. Grade 11: Proc. for educational institutions. At 2 o'clock - M.: LLC "TID "Russian Word", 2007.-600s.
Additional literature:
1. Kozhinov V. A prophet in his Fatherland. - M., 2002.
3. Musatov V.V. History of Russian literature in the first half of the twentieth century. - M., 2001.
4. Nabokov V. Lectures on Russian literature. - M., 2001.
5. Russian literature of the twentieth century. / Ed. A.G. Andreeva. - M., 2002.
6. Russian literature XIX in. (part 1, 2, 3). 10 cells / Ed. Ionina G.N. - M., 2001.
7. Smirnova L.N. Russian literature of the late nineteenth - early twentieth centuries. - M., 2001.
8. Sokolov A.G. History of Russian literature of the 19th–20th centuries. - M., 2000.
9. Timina S.I. Russian prose of the late twentieth century. - M., 2001.
What time period are we talking about when the term "modern Russian literature" is mentioned? Obviously, it originates from 1991, having received an impetus for development after the collapse of the USSR. There is no doubt about the presence of this cultural phenomenon at the present time. Many literary critics agree that four generations of writers stand behind its creation and development.
The Sixties and Modern Literature
So, modern Russian literature arose immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Iron Curtain, not from scratch. This happened largely due to the legalization of the works of writers of the sixties, previously banned for publication.
The newly discovered names of Fazil Iskander became known to the general public (the story "The Constellation of Kozlotur", the epic novel "Sandro from Chegem"); Vladimir Voinovich (the novel "The Adventures of Ivan Chonkin", the novels "Moscow 2042", "The Idea"); Vasily Aksenov (the novels "Crimea Island", "Burn"), Valentin Rasputin (the novels "Fire", "Live and Remember", the story "French Lessons").
Writers of the 70s
Together with the works of the generation of disgraced freethinkers of the sixties, modern Russian literature began with the books of the authors of the generation of the 70s that were allowed for publication. She was enriched by the writings of Andrei Bitov (the novel "Pushkin's House", the collection "Pharmaceutical Island", the novel "Flying Monks"); Venedikt Erofeev (poem in prose "Moscow - Petushki", play "Dissidents, or Fanny Kaplan"); Victoria Tokareva (collections of stories “When it became a little warmer”, “About what was not”); Vladimir Makanin (the stories "A table covered with cloth and with a decanter in the middle", "One and One"), Lyudmila Petrushevskaya (the stories "Thunderbolt", "Never").
Writers Initiated by Perestroika
The third generation of writers - creators of literature was awakened to creativity directly by perestroika.
Modern Russian literature has been enriched with new bright names of its creators: Viktor Pelevin (the novels "Chapaev and Emptiness", "The Life of Insects", "Numbers", "Empire B", "T", "Snuff"), Lyudmila Ulitskaya (the novels "Medea and her children”, “The Case of Kukotsky”, “Sincerely yours Shurik”, “Daniel Stein, translator”, “Green Tent”); Tatyana Tolstaya (the novel "Kys", collections of short stories "The Okkervil River", "You Love - You Don't Love", "Night", "Day", "Circle"); Vladimir Sorokin (the stories "The Day of the Oprichnik", "Snowstorm", the novels "Norma", "Telluria", "Blue Fat"); Olga Slavnikova (novels Dragonfly Enlarged to the Size of a Dog, Alone in the Mirror, 2017, Immortal, Waltz with a Monster).
New generation of writers
And, finally, modern Russian literature of the 21st century has replenished with a generation of young writers, whose work began directly at the time of state sovereignty. Russian Federation. Young, but already recognized talents include Andrei Gerasimov (the novels Steppe Gods, Razgulyaevka, Cold); Denis Gutsko (dilogue "Russian Speaker"); Ilya Kochergin (story "Helper of the Chinese", stories "Wolves", "Altynay", "Altai stories"); Ilya Stogoff (the novels "Machos Don't Cry", "Apocalypse Yesterday", "Revolution Now!", collections of short stories "Ten Fingers", "Dogs of the Lord"); Roman Senchin (novels "Information", "Yeltyshevs", "Flooding Zone").
Literary awards stimulate creativity
It is no secret that modern Russian literature of the 21st century is developing so violently thanks to numerous sponsorship awards. Additional motivation encourages authors to further development their creativity. In 1991, the Russian Booker Prize was approved under the auspices of the British company British Petrolium.
In 2000, thanks to the sponsorship of the construction and investment company "Vistkom", another major award was established - "Natsbest". And finally, the most significant is the Big Book, established in 2005 by Gazprom. The total number of active literary awards in the Russian Federation is approaching a hundred. Thanks to literary prizes, the writing profession has become fashionable and prestigious; the Russian language and modern literature received a significant impetus to their development; the previously dominant method of realism in literature was supplemented by new directions.
Thanks to active writers (which is manifested in works of literature), it develops as a communicative system, through further universalization, i.e. by borrowing syntactic constructions, individual words, speech turns from vernacular, professional communication, various dialects.
Styles of modern literature. mass literature
Works of modern Russian literature are created by their authors in various styles, among which mass literature, postmodernism, blogging literature, dystopian novel, literature for clerks stand out. Let's take a closer look at these directions.
Mass literature today continues the traditions of entertainment literature of the end of the last century: fantasy, science fiction, detective story, melodrama, adventure novel. However, at the same time, there is a correction in it for the modern rhythm of life, for the rapid scientific progress. Readers of mass literature make up the largest share of its market in Russia. Indeed, it attracts various age groups of the population, representatives of various levels of education. Among the works of popular literature, compared with books of other literary styles, most of all bestsellers, i.e. compositions with peak popularity.
The development of modern Russian literature today is most determined by the creators of books with maximum circulations: Boris Akunin, Sergey Lukyanenko, Daria Dontsova, Polina Dashkova, Alexandra Marinina, Evgeny Grishkovets, Tatyana Ustinova.
Postmodernism
Postmodernism as a trend in Russian literature emerged in the 90s of the last century. Its first adherents were the writers of the 70s, and representatives of this trend opposed realism with an ironic attitude towards communist ideology. In artistic form, they demonstrated evidence of the crisis of the totalitarian ideology. Their baton was continued by Vasily Aksenov "The Island of Crimea" and Vladimir Voinovich "The Adventures of a Soldier Chonkin". Then they were joined by Vladimir Sorokin, Anatoly Korolev. However, the star of Viktor Pelevin lit up brighter than all other representatives of this trend. Each book by this author (and they are published about once a year) gives a subtle artistic description of the development of society.
Russian literature at the present stage is ideologically developing thanks to postmodernism. His characteristic irony, the dominance of chaos over order inherent in changes in the social system, the free combination of artistic styles determine the universality of the artistic palette of its representatives. In particular, Viktor Pelevin in 2009 was informally honored as the leading intellectual in Russia. The originality of his style lies in the fact that the writer used his unique interpretation of Buddhism and the liberation of the individual. His works are multipolar, they include many subtexts. Viktor Pelevin is considered a classic of postmodernism. His books have been translated into all languages of the world, including Japanese and Chinese.
Novels are dystopias
Modern trends in Russian literature also contributed to the development of the genre of the novel - dystopia, relevant during periods of social paradigm shifts. generic traits this genre is the representation of the surrounding reality not directly, but already perceived by the consciousness of the protagonist.
Moreover, the main idea of such works is the conflict of the individual and the totalitarian society of the imperial type. According to its mission, such a novel is a book - a warning. Among the works of this genre are the novels "2017" (author - O. Slavnikova), "Underground" by V. Makanin, "ZhD" by D. Bykov, "Moscow 2042" by V. Voinovich, "Empire V" by V. Pelevin.
blogging literature
The most complete problems of modern Russian literature are covered in the genre of blogging works. This type of literature has common features with traditional literature, and significant differences. Like traditional literature, this genre performs cultural, educational, ideological, and relaxation functions.
But, unlike her, he has a communicative function and a function of socialization. It is blogging literature that fulfills the mission of communication between the participants in the literary process in Russia. Blogger literature performs the functions inherent in journalism.
It is more dynamic than traditional literature because it uses small genres (reviews, sketches, informative notes, essays, short poems, short stories). It is characteristic that the work of a blogger, even after its publication, is not closed, completed. After all, any comment that follows is not a separate, but an organic part of the blog work. Among the most popular literary blogs on the Russian Internet, the Russian Book Community, the Discussing Books community, and the What to Read? community stand out.
Conclusion
Modern Russian literature today is in the process of its creative development. Many of our contemporaries read the dynamic works of Boris Akunin, enjoy the subtle psychologism of Lyudmila Ulitskaya, follow the intricacies of fantasy plots by Vadim Panov, and try to feel the pulse of time in the writings of Viktor Pelevin. Today we have the opportunity to assert that in our time, unique writers create inimitable literature.
Modern literature (at the choice of the applicant)
Modern Literature (60-80s)
2-3 works of the applicant's choice from the following recommendation list:
F. Abramov. Wooden horses. Alka. Pelagia. Brothers and sisters.
V.P. Astafiev. King fish. Sad detective.
V.M. Shukshin. Villager. Characters. Conversations under a clear moon.
V.G. Rasputin. Deadline. Farewell to Mother. Live and remember.
Yu.V. Trifonov. Waterfront house. Old man. Exchange. Another life.
V.V. Bykov. Sotnikov. Obelisk. Wolf Pack.
The concept of "modern literature" covers a fairly large and, most importantly, full of important social and political events period, which, of course, had an impact on the development of the literary process. Within this period, there are quite pronounced chronological "sections", qualitatively different from one another and at the same time interdependent, developing common problems at one or another turn of the historical spiral.
Second half of the fifties - the beginning of the sixties was called the "thaw", according to the story of the same name by I. Ehrenburg. The image of the thaw as a symbol of the time was, as they say, on the minds of many, it is no coincidence that almost simultaneously with the story of I. Ehrenburg, even a little earlier, a poem by N. Zabolotsky with the same title was published in Novy Mir. This is due to the fact that in the country after the death of Stalin (1953) and especially after the XX Congress of the CPSU (1956), the rigid framework of political censorship in relation to works of art was somewhat weakened, and works appeared in the press that more truthfully reflect the cruel and contradictory past and present of the Fatherland. First of all, such problems as the image of the Great Patriotic War and the condition and fate of the Russian countryside were largely subjected to revision and reassessment. Time distance, beneficial changes in the life of society created an opportunity for analytical reflection on the paths of development and the historical fate of Russia in the 20th century. A new military prose was born, associated with the names of K. Simonov, Yu. Bondarev, G. Baklanov, V. Bykov, V. Astafiev, V. Bogomolov. They were joined by the growing theme of Stalinist repressions. Often these themes were intertwined, forming a fusion that excites the minds of the public, activating the position of literature in society. These are “The Living and the Dead” by K. Simonov, “Battle on the Road” by G. Nikolaeva, “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” by A. Solzhenitsyn, “Silence” and “Last Salvos” by Y. Bondarev, “A Common Business” by V. Belov, “ Potholes” and “Bad weather” by V. Tendryakov. The "non-conflict" period was rejected without regret. Literature returned to the wonderful traditions of the classics, putting forward the "difficult questions" of life, enlarging and sharpening them in works of different styles and genres. All these works are to some extent marked by one common quality: the plot, as a rule, is based on the fact that the intervention of the authorities in the fate of the characters leads to dramatic and sometimes tragic consequences. If in the previous period, marked by "conflictlessness", the unity of power and people, party and society was affirmed, now the problem of confrontation between power and the individual, pressure on the individual, humiliation of it is outlined. Moreover, the heroes of various social groups realize themselves as a person, from military leaders and production directors (“The Living and the Dead”, “Battle on the Road”), to an illiterate peasant (B. Mozhaev “From the Life of Fyodor Kuzkin”).
By the end of the 60s censorship is tightened again, marking the beginning of "stagnation", as this time was called fifteen years later, on a new round of the historical spiral. A. Solzhenitsyn, some village writers (V. Belov, B. Mozhaev), representatives of the so-called “youth” direction of prose (V. Aksenov, A. Gladilin, A. Kuznetsov), who were forced to emigrate later to preserve creative freedom, and sometimes political freedom, as evidenced by the references of A. Solzhenitsyn, I. Brodsky, the persecution of A. Tvardovsky as the editor-in-chief of Novy Mir, who published the sharpest works of those years. In the 1970s, however, a weak attempt was made to rehabilitate the consequences of Stalin's "personality cult", especially his role as Commander-in-Chief during the Great Patriotic War. Literature again, as in the 1920s and 1940s, is divided into two streams - official, "secretary" (that is, writers who held high positions in the Union of Soviet Writers), and "samizdat", distributing works or not published at all or published abroad. B. Pasternak's novel "Doctor Zhivago", "The Gulag Archipelago" and "The Cancer Ward" by A. Solzhenitsyn, poems by I. Brodsky, journalistic notes by V. Soloukhin "Reading Lenin", "Moscow - Petushki" by V. Erofeev passed through "samizdat" and a number of other works published in the late 80s - early 90s and continuing to be published to this day ...
And yet, lively, sincere, talented literature continues to exist, even despite the tightening of censorship. In the 1970s, the so-called "village prose" became more active, coming to the fore in terms of depth of problems, brightness of conflicts, expressiveness and accuracy of the language, in the absence of special stylistic and plot "frills". Village writers of a new generation (V. Rasputin, V. Shukshin, B. Mozhaev, S. Zalygin), are moving from social problems Russian village to philosophical, moral, ontological problems. The problem of recreating the Russian national character at the turn of epochs, the problem of the relationship between nature and civilization, the problem of good and evil, momentary and eternal. Despite the fact that in these works the acute political problems that disturb society were not directly touched upon, they nevertheless gave the impression of opposition; the discussions about “village” prose that took place on the pages of Literaturnaya Gazeta and the journal Literaturnaya Uba in the early 1980s literally split criticism into “soilers” and “Westerners,” just like a hundred years ago.
Unfortunately, the last decade has not been marked by the appearance of such significant works as in previous years, but it will forever go down in the history of Russian literature with an unprecedented abundance of publications of works that, for censorship reasons, were not published earlier, starting from the 1920s, when Russian prose was essentially and split into two streams. The new period of Russian literature is passing under the sign of obsceneness and the merging of Russian literature into a single stream, regardless of where the writer lives and where he lived, what his political preferences are and what his fate is. The hitherto unknown works by A. Platonov "The Pit", "The Juvenile Sea", "Chevengur", "Happy Moscow", E. Zamyatin "We", A. Akhmatova "Requiem", the works of V. Nabokov and M. Aldanov are published, the works of V. Nabokov and M. Aldanov are being returned in Russian literature, emigrant writers of the last wave (70s - 80s): S. Dovlatov, E. Limonov, V. Maksimov, V. Sinyavsky, I. Brodsky; there is an opportunity to evaluate firsthand the works of the Russian "underground": "courtly mannerists", Valery Popov, V. Erofeev, Vik. Erofeeva, V. Korkia and others.
Summing up the results of this period of development of Russian literature, we can conclude that its most striking achievement was the work of the so-called "village writers", who managed to raise deep moral, social, historical and philosophical problems based on the material of the life of the Russian peasantry in the 20th century.
The novels and short stories by S. Zalygin, V. Belov, B. Mozhaev show how the process of depeasantization began, deeply affecting not only the country's economy, but also its spiritual and moral foundation. What all this led to is eloquently evidenced by the stories of F. Abramov and V. Rasputin, the stories of V. Shukshin and others.
F. Abramov (1920-1982) reveals the tragedy of the Russian peasantry, behind which stands the tragedy of the whole country, on the example of the northern Russian village of Pekashino, the prototype of which was the native village of F. Abramov Verkola. The tetralogy "Pryaslina", which includes the novels "Two Winters and Three Summers", "Brothers and Sisters", "Crossroads", "Home", tells about the life of the inhabitants of Pekashin, who, together with the whole country, went through difficult trials of pre-war, military and post-war years until the 1970s. The central characters of the tetralogy are Mikhail Pryaslin, who from the age of 14 remained not only the head of an orphaned family, but also the main peasant on the collective farm, and his sister Liza. Despite their truly inhuman efforts to raise and put younger brothers and sisters on their feet, life turned out to be unkind to them: the family is disunited, broke up: who goes to jail, who is forever dissolved in the city, who dies. Only Mikhail and Lisa remain in the village.
In the 4th part, Mikhail, a strong, thick-set forty-year-old man, whom everyone respected and obeyed before, turns out to be unclaimed due to numerous reforms that destroyed the traditional way of life in the northern Russian village. He is a groom, Liza is seriously ill, his daughters, with the exception of the youngest, look at the city. What's next for the village? Will she be destroyed like her parents' house, or will she endure all the trials that have befallen her? F. Abramov hopes for the best. The finale of the tetralogy, for all its tragedy, inspires hope.
Very interesting are the short stories of F. Abramov "Wooden horses", "Pelageya", "Alka", in which, using the example of three women's destinies far from encouraging evolution of the female national character can be traced in a difficult and critical time. The story "Wooden Horses" introduces us to Vasilisa Melentievna, a woman with a fabulously epic name and the soul of a righteous person. From her appearance, everything around brightens, even her daughter-in-law Zhenya is waiting, she can’t wait for Melentievna to come to visit them. Melentievna is a person who sees the meaning and joy of life in work, whatever it may be. And now, old and infirm, she even goes to the nearby forest for mushrooms, so that the day will not be lived in vain. Her daughter Sonya, who in the difficult post-war period found herself in logging and deceived by her beloved, commits suicide not so much from shame in front of people, but from shame and guilt in front of her mother, who did not have time and could not warn and stop her.
This feeling is incomprehensible to Alka, a modern village girl who flutters through life like a moth, either clinging with all her might to city life, to the dubious share of a waitress, or striving for the luxurious, in her opinion, life of a stewardess. With her seducer - a visiting officer - she cracks down cruelly and decisively, seeking his dismissal from the army, which in those years actually meant civil death, and thus obtaining a passport (as you know, in the 50s and 60s, peasants did not have a passport, and to move to the city, one had to get a passport by hook or by crook). Through the image of Alka, F. Abramov drew the attention of readers to the problem of the so-called “marginal” person, that is, a person who had just moved to the city from the village, who had lost his former spiritual and moral values and did not find new ones, changing them to external signs of urban life.
Problems of the "marginal" personality V. Shukshin (1929-1974), who experienced the difficulties of growing a “natural” person, a native of the Altai village, into urban life, into the environment of the creative intelligentsia, also worried a semi-urban, semi-village person.
But his work, in particular, short stories, is much broader than the description of the life of the Russian peasantry in a critical era. The problem with which V. Shukshin came to literature of the 60s , in essence, remained unchanged - this is the problem of the fulfillment of the personality. His heroes, who “invent” another life for themselves (Monya Kvasov “Stubborn”, Gleb Kapustin “Cut Off”, Bronka Pupkov “Mil Pardon, Madam”, Timofei Khudyakov “Ticket for the Second Session”), crave fulfillment at least in that fictional world . Shukshin's problematic is unusually acute precisely because behind the bright, as if from the face of the hero, narrative, we feel the author's disturbing reflection on the impossibility real life when the soul is occupied with “the wrong thing”. V. Shukshin passionately affirmed the seriousness of this problem, the need for each person to stop and think about the meaning of his life, about his purpose on earth, about his place in society.
One of his last books V. Shukshin called "Characters". But, in fact, all his work is devoted to depicting bright, unusual, unique, original characters that do not fit into the prose of life, into its ordinary everyday life. According to the title of one of his stories, these original and unique Shukshin characters began to be called "freaks". those. people who carry in their souls something of their own, unique, which distinguishes them from the mass of homogeneous characters-types. Even in his basically ordinary character, Shukshin is interested in those moments of his life when something special, unique, highlighting the essence of his personality, appears in him. Such is Sergei Dukhavin in the story "Boots", who buys insanely expensive, elegant boots in the city for his wife, the milkmaid Klava. He is aware of the impracticality and senselessness of his act, but for some reason he cannot do otherwise, and the reader understands that this instinctively manifests a feeling of love for his wife, hidden behind everyday life, that has not cooled down over the years of living together. And this psychologically precisely motivated act gives rise to a response from the wife, just as sparingly expressed, but just as deep and sincere. Unassuming and strange story, told by V. Shukshin, creates a bright feeling of mutual understanding, harmony of "complex simple" people who are sometimes forgotten behind the ordinary and petty. Klava wakes up with a feminine sense of coquetry, youthful enthusiasm, lightness, despite the fact that the boots, of course, turned out to be small and went to the eldest daughter.
Respecting the right of a person to be himself, even if the exercise of this right makes a person strange and absurd, unlike others, V. Shukshin hates those who seek to unify the individual, bring everything under a common denominator, hiding behind ringing socially significant phrases, shows that often envy, pettiness, selfishness are hidden behind this empty and sonorous phrase (“My son-in-law stole a firewood machine”, “Unscrupulous”). In the story "Unscrupulous" we are talking about three old men: Glukhov, Olga Sergeevna and Otavikha. Socially active, energetic and resolute Olga Sergeevna in her youth preferred the modest and quiet Glukhov to the desperate commissar, but, finally left alone, she returned to her native village, maintaining good and even relations with her aged and also lonely admirer. The character of Olga Sergeevna would never have been unraveled if the old man Glukhov had not decided to start a family with a lonely Otavikha, which aroused Olga Sergeevna's anger and jealousy. She led the fight against the elderly, using the phraseology of public condemnation with might and main, talking about the immorality and immorality of such a union, emphasizing the inadmissibility of intimate relationships at this age, although it is clear that it was primarily about mutual support for each other. And as a result, she aroused shame in the old people for the depravity (non-existent) of their thoughts about living together, the fear that Olga Sergeevna would tell this story in the village and thereby completely disgrace them. But Olga Sergeevna is silent, quite satisfied with the fact that she managed to humiliate and trample people, maybe she is silent for the time being. Glad someone else's humiliation and Gleb Kapustin in the story "Cut off".
V. Shukshin's favorite heroes are extraordinary thinkers, who are in an eternal search for the meaning of life, often people with a subtle and vulnerable soul, sometimes doing ridiculous, but touching deeds.
V. Shukshin is a master of a short story, which is based on a vivid sketch “from nature” and a serious generalization contained in it based on this sketch. These stories form the basis of the collections "Villagers", "Conversations under a clear moon", "Characters". But V. Shukshin is a writer of a universal warehouse, who created two novels: "Lubavins" and "I came to give you freedom", the screenplay "Kalina Krasnaya", the satirical plays "And in the morning they woke up" and "Until the third roosters." Fame brought him both directing and acting.
V. Rasputin (b. 1938) - one of interesting writers belonging to the younger generation of so-called village writers. He became famous thanks to a series of stories from the life of a modern village near the Angara: “Money for Mary”, “Deadline”, “Live and Remember”, “Farewell to Mother”, “Fire”. The stories are distinguished by the concreteness of the sketches of the life and life of the Siberian village, the brightness and originality of the characters of the peasants of different generations, the philosophical nature, the combination of social, ecological and moral issues, psychologism, a wonderful sense of language, poetic style ...
Among the characters of the heroes of V. Rasputin, who brought him fame, first of all, it is necessary to single out a gallery of images that critics have defined as "Rasputin's old women" - his peasant women, who endured all the hardships and hardships on their shoulders and did not break, retaining purity and decency, conscientiousness, how one of his favorite heroines, the old woman Daria from Farewell to Matera, defines the main quality of a person. These are truly the righteous on whom the earth rests. Anna Stepanovna from the story “The Deadline” considers the biggest sin in her life to be that during collectivization, when all the cows were herded into a common herd, after the collective farm milking, she milked her cow Zorka in order to save her children from starvation. Once her daughter found her doing this: “Her eyes burned me to the very soul,” Anna Stepanovna repents before her death to her old friend.
Daria Pinigina from the story “Farewell to Matera” is perhaps the most vivid and in a good way declarative image of the old righteous woman from the stories of V. Rasputin. The story itself is deep, polyphonic, problematic. Matera is a huge island on the Angara, a prototype of the Siberian paradise. It has everything that is necessary for a normal life: a cozy village with houses decorated with wonderful wooden carvings, which is why almost every house has a sign nailed: “protected by the state”, forest, arable land, a cemetery where ancestors are buried, meadows and mowing, pasture, river. There is the Royal Foliage, which, according to legend, attaches the island to the main land, therefore, is the key to the strength and indestructibility of life. There is the owner of the island - a mythological creature, his amulet, patron. And all this must perish forever, go under water as a result of the construction of another hydroelectric power station. Residents perceive the change in their fate in different ways: the young are even glad, the middle generation comes to terms with the inevitability of what is happening, some even burn their houses ahead of schedule in order to quickly receive compensation and drink it away. And only Daria rebels against the thoughtless and fleeting farewell to Matera, seeing her off into inevitable oblivion slowly, with dignity, decorating and mourning her hut, cleaning up the graves of her parents in the cemetery, praying for those who offended her and the island with their thoughtlessness. The weak old woman, the dumb tree, the mysterious owner of the island rebelled against the pragmatism and frivolity of modern people. They could not radically change the situation, but, having stood in the way of the inevitable flooding of the village, they delayed the destruction even for a moment, made their antagonists think, among them the son and grandson of Daria, and readers. Therefore, the finale of the story sounds so ambiguous and biblically sublime. What's next for Matera? What awaits Humanity? There is protest and anger in the very posing of these questions.
In recent years, V.Rasputin has been engaged in journalism (the book of essays "Siberia! Siberia ...") and social and political activities.
IN 60s - 80s The so-called “military prose” also announced itself quite loudly and talentedly, illuminating everyday life and deeds, “days and nights” of the Great Patriotic War in a new way. "Trench Truth", i.e. the unvarnished truth of being a “man at war” becomes the basis for moral and philosophical reflections, for solving the existential problem of “choice”: the choice between life and death, honor and betrayal, a majestic goal and countless sacrifices in its name. These problems underlie the works of G. Baklanov, Yu. Bondarev, V. Bykov.
This problem of choice is solved most dramatically in V. Bykov's stories. In the story "Sotnikov" one of the two captured partisans saves his life by becoming the executioner for the other. But such a price of his own life becomes prohibitively difficult for him too, his life loses all meaning, turning into endless self-accusation and in the end leads him to thoughts of suicide. In the story "Obelisk" the question of heroism and sacrifice is raised. Teacher Ales Moroz voluntarily surrenders to the Nazis in order to be next to his students, taken hostage. Together with them, he goes to his death, miraculously saving only one of his students. Who is he - a hero or a lone anarchist who disobeyed the order of the commander of the partisan detachment, who forbade him to do this? What is more important - the active struggle against the Nazis as part of a partisan detachment or the moral support of children doomed to death? V. Bykov affirms the greatness of the human spirit, moral uncompromisingness in the face of death. The writer deserves it own life and fate, having been a warrior all the long four years of the war.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, literature, like society as a whole, was going through a deep crisis. The history of Russian literature in the 20th century so developed that, along with aesthetic laws, its development was determined by circumstances of a socio-political, historical nature, which were by no means always beneficial. And now attempts to overcome this crisis through documentary art, often striving for naturalism (“Children of the Arbat” by Rybakov, Shalamov), or by destroying the integrity of the world, peering into the gray everyday life of gray, inconspicuous people (L. Petrushevskaya, V. Pietsukh, T. Tolstaya) have not yet led to significant results. At this stage, it is rather difficult to catch any creative tendencies of the modern literary process in Russia. Time will show everything and put it in its place.
Additional material
Nina Berberova once remarked: “Nabokov not only writes in a new way, he also teaches how to read in a new way. He creates his reader. In the article "On Good Readers and Good Writers" Nabokov sets out his view on this problem.
“It should be remembered that a work of art is always the creation of a new world, and therefore, first of all, we must try as fully as possible to understand this world in all its burning novelty, as having no connection with the worlds we already know. And only after it has been studied in detail - only after that! - you can find its connection with other artistic worlds and other areas of knowledge.
(...) The art of writing turns into an empty occupation if it is not, first of all, the art of seeing life through the prism of fiction. (...) The writer does not just arrange the outer side of life, but melts down every atom of it.
Nabokov believed that the reader must have imagination, a good memory, a sense of the word, and, most importantly, an artistic flair.
“There are three points of view from which a writer can be viewed: as a storyteller, a teacher, and a magician. A great writer has all three properties, but the magician predominates in him, which is what makes him a great writer. The narrator simply entertains us, excites the mind and feelings, makes it possible to make a long journey without spending too much time on it. A somewhat different, although not necessarily deeper, mind is looking for a teacher in the artist - a propagandist, a moralist, a prophet (precisely this sequence). In addition, you can turn to a teacher not only for moral teachings, but also for knowledge and facts. (..) But above all great artist- always a great magician, and this is precisely the most exciting moment for the reader: in the feeling of the magic of great art created by a genius, in the desire to understand the originality of his style, imagery, the structure of his novels or poems.
Section XIII. Literature of recent decades
Lesson 62 (123). Literature at the present stage
Lesson Objectives: give an overview of the works of recent years; show the trends of modern literature; give an idea of postmodernism,
Methodical methods: teacher's lecture; discussion of essays; conversation about readings.
During the classes
I. Reading and discussion of 2-3 essays
II. teacher lecture
Modern literary process characterized by the disappearance of former canonized themes (“the theme of the working class”, “the theme of the army”, etc.) and a sharp rise in the role of everyday relationships. Attention to everyday life, sometimes absurd, to experience human soul forced to survive in a situation of breakdown, shifts in society, gives rise to special plots. Many writers, as it were, want to get rid of the past pathos, rhetoric, preaching, fall into the aesthetics of "outrageous and shock." The realistic branch of literature, having experienced a state of lack of demand, is approaching the comprehension of a turning point in the sphere of moral values. "literature about literature", memoir prose, comes to a prominent place.
"Perestroika" opened the door to a huge stream of "detainees" and young writers who profess different aesthetics - naturalistic, avant-garde, postmodernist, realistic. One way to update realism is to try to free it from ideological predetermination. This trend led to a new round of naturalism: it combined the traditional belief in the purifying power of the cruel truth about society and the rejection of pathos of any kind, ideology, preaching (prose by S. Kaledin "Humble Cemetery", "Stroybat"; prose and drama by L. Petrushevskaya) .
The year 1987 is of particular importance in the history of Russian literature. This is the beginning of a unique period, exceptional in its general cultural significance. This is the beginning of the process of returning Russian literature. The main motive of the four years (1987) is the motive of the rehabilitation of history and forbidden - "uncensored", "withdrawn", "repressed" - literature. In 1988, speaking at the Copenhagen meeting of artists, the literary critic Efim Etkind said: “Now there is a process that has an unprecedented, phenomenal significance for literature: the process of return. A crowd of shadows of writers and works, about which the general reader knew nothing, poured onto the pages of Soviet magazines ... Shadows are returning from everywhere.
The first years of the rehabilitation period - 1987-1988 - is the time of the return of spiritual exiles, those Russian writers who (in the physical sense) did not leave the borders of their country.
With the publication of works by Mikhail Bulgakov ("Heart of a Dog", "Crimson Island"), Andrei Platonov ("Chevengur", "Pit", "Juvenile Sea"), Boris Pasternak ("Doctor Zhivago"), Anna Akhmatova ("Requiem"), Osip Mandelstam (“Voronezh Notebooks”), the creative heritage of these (known before 1987) writers was restored in full.
The next two years - 1989-1990 - is the time of the active return of the whole literary system - the literature of the Russian diaspora. Prior to 1989, single republications by émigré writers—Joseph Brodsky and Vladimir Nabokov in 1987—were sensational. And in 1989-1990, "a crowd of shadows poured into Russia from France and America" (E. Etkind) - these are Vasily Aksenov, Georgy Vladimov, Vladimir Voinovich, Sergei Dovlatov, Naum Korzhavin, Viktor Nekrasov, Sasha Sokolov and, of course, Alexander Solzhenitsyn .
The main problem for the literature of the second half of the 1980s is the rehabilitation of history. In April 1988, a scientific conference was held in Moscow with a very revealing title - "Actual Issues of Historical Science and Literature." The speakers spoke about the problem of the veracity of the history of Soviet society and the role of literature in the elimination of "blank historical spots". In the emotional report of the economist and historian Yevgeny Ambartsumov, the idea was supported by everyone that “true history began to develop outside the ossified official historiography, in particular, by our writers F. Abramov and Yu. Trifonov, S. Zalygin and B. Mozhaev, V. Astafiev and F. Iskander, A. Rybakov and M. Shatrov, who began to write history for those who could not or did not want to do this. In the same 1988, critics started talking about the emergence of a whole trend in literature, which they designated as “new historical prose”. The novels “Children of the Arbat” by Anatoly Rybakov and “White Clothes” by Vladimir Dudintsev and Anatoly Pristavkin’s story “A Golden Cloud Spent the Night” were published in 1987 and became public events of this year. At the beginning of 1988, Mikhail Shatrov's play “Further ... further ... further ...” became a similar socio-political event, while the images of “living bad Stalin” and “living non-standard Lenin” barely passed the then-existing censorship.
State proper modern literature, i.e., the one that was not only printed, but also written in the second half of the 1980s, confirms that during this period, literature was primarily a civil matter. At that time, only ironist poets and authors of “physiological stories” (“guignol prose” (Sl.)) Leonid Gabyshev (“Odlyan, or the Air of Freedom”) and Sergey Kaledin (“Stroybat”) were able to loudly declare themselves at that time, in whose the works depicted the dark sides of modern life - the mores of juvenile delinquents or army "hazing".
It should also be noted that the publication of the stories of Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, Yevgeny Popov, Tatyana Tolstaya, authors who today determine the face of modern literature, in 1987 went almost unnoticed. In that literary situation, as Andrei Sinyavsky rightly noted, these were "artistically redundant texts."
So, 1987-1990 is the time when the prophecy of Mikhail Bulgakov came true (“Manuscripts do not burn”) and the program was carried out, so carefully outlined by Academician Dmitry Sergeevich Likhachev: “And if we publish Andrey Platonov’s unpublished works “Chevengur” and “The Pit” , some works of Bulgakov, Akhmatova, Zoshchenko still remaining in the archives, it seems to me that this will also be useful for our culture ”(from the article: The culture of truth is the anti-culture of lies // Literary newspaper, 1987. No. 1). Within four years, a colossal array was mastered by a wide Russian reader - 2/3 of the previously unknown and inaccessible corpus of Russian literature; all citizens became readers. “The country has turned into an All-Union Reading Room, in which, after Doctor Zhivago, Life and Fate is discussed (Natalya Ivanova). These years are called the years of the "feast of reading"; there was an unheard-of and unique increase in the circulation of periodical literary publications ("thick" literary magazines). Record circulation of the Novy Mir magazine (1990) - 2,710,000 copies. (in 1999 - 15,000 copies, i.e., slightly more than 0.5%); all writers became citizens (in 1989, it was the writers V. Astafiev, V. Bykov, O. Gonchar, S. Zalygin, L. Leonov, V. Rasputin who became people's deputies and deputies from creative unions in the overwhelming majority); civic (“severe”, not “elegant”) literature triumphs. It culminates in 1990 - the “year of Solzhenitsyn” and the year of one of the most sensational publications of the 1990s - the article “Walking for Soviet Literature”, in which its author, a representative of the “new literature”, Viktor Erofeev, announced the end of the “solzhenization” of Russian literature and the beginning of the next period in the latest Russian literature - postmodern (1991-1994).
Postmodernism appeared in the mid-40s, but was recognized as a phenomenon of Western culture, as a phenomenon in literature, art, philosophy, only in the early 80s. Postmodernism is characterized by the understanding of the world as chaos, the world as a text, the awareness of the fragmentation, fragmentation of being. One of the main principles of postmodernism is intertextuality (correlation of the text with other literary sources).
The postmodern text forms a new type of relationship between literature and the reader. The reader becomes a co-author of the text. The perception of artistic values becomes ambiguous. Literature is considered as an intellectual game.
Postmodern storytelling is a book about literature, a book about books.
In the last third of the twentieth century, postmodernism became widespread in our country. These are the works of Andrey Bitov, Venedikt Erofeev, Sasha Sokolov, Tatyana Tolstaya, Joseph Brodsky and some other authors. The system of values is being revised, mythologies are being destroyed, the view of writers is often ironic, paradoxical.
Changes in the political, economic, social conditions in the country at the end of the twentieth century led to many changes in the literary and near-literary processes. In particular, since the 1990s, the Booker Prize has appeared in Russia. Its founder is the English Booker company, which is engaged in the production of food products and their wholesale. The Russian Booker Literary Prize was established by the founder of the Booker Prize in the UK, Booker Pic, in 1992 as a tool to support authors writing in Russian and revive publishing in Russia with the aim of making good contemporary Russian literature commercially successful in its homeland.
From a letter from Booker Committee Chairman Sir Michael Caine:
“The success of Booker Prize, with its annual change of committee, independence from the interests of publishers and state structures, prompted us to establish the same awards for works in other languages. The most tempting idea seemed to be the creation of the Booker Prize for the best novel in Russian. With this, we want to express respect for one of the greatest literatures in the world and hope that we will be able to help draw everyone's attention to today's lively and problem-filled Russian literature. The award system is as follows: nominators (literary critics acting on behalf of literary magazines and publishing houses) nominate nominees, contenders for the award (the so-called "long list" (long-list)). From among them, the jury selects six finalists (the so-called "short-list" (short-list)), one of which becomes the laureate (bukerat).
Mark Kharitonov (1992, “Lines of Fate, or Milashevich’s Chest”), Vladimir Makanin (1993, “Table covered with cloth and with a decanter in the middle”), Bulat Okudzhava (1994, “Abolished Theater”), Georgy Vladimov (1995) became Russian bookers. , “The General and His Army”), Andrei Sergeev (1996, “Stamp Day Album”), Anatoly Azolsky (1997, “Cage”), Alexander Morozov (1998, “Alien Letters”), Mikhail Butov (1999, “Freedom” ), Mikhail Shishkin (2000, "The Capture of Izmail"), Lyudmila Ulitskaya (2001, "Kukotsky's Case"), Oleg Pavlov (2002, "Karaganda Deviatiny, or the Tale of last days"). It should be understood that the Booker Prize, like any other literary award, is not intended to answer the question “Who is your first, second, third writer?” or “Which novel is the best?”. Literary awards are a civilized way to arouse publishing and reader interest (“Bring together readers, writers, publishers. So that books are bought, so that literary work was respected and even brought income. Writer, publisher. But in general, culture wins ”(critic Sergei Reingold)).
Close attention to the Booker laureates already in 1992 made it possible to identify two aesthetic trends in the latest Russian literature - postmodernism (among the finalists in 1992 were Mark Kharitonov and Vladimir Sorokin) and post-realism (post-realism is a trend in the latest Russian prose). Typical for realism is the attention to the fate of a private person, tragically lonely and trying to self-determine (Vladimir Makanin and Lyudmila Petrushevskaya).
Nevertheless, Booker's and the subsequent literary awards(Antibooker, Triumph, the A. S. Pushkin Prize, the Paris Prize for a Russian Poet) did not fully remove the problem of confrontation between non-commercial literature (“pure art”) and the market. “The way out of the impasse” (that was the title of an article by the critic and culturologist Alexander Genis, dedicated to the literary situation of the early 1990s) for “non-market” literature was its appeal to traditionally mass genres (literary and even song) -
Fantasy ("fantasy") - "The Life of Insects" (1993) by Viktor Pelevin;
Fantasy novel - "Cassandra's Brand" (1994) by Chingiz Aitmatov;
Mystical-political thriller - "Guardian" (1993) by Anatoly Kurchatkin;
Erotic novel - "Eron" (1994) by Anatoly Korolev, "Road to Rome" by Nikolai Klimontovich, "Everyday life of a harem" (1994) by Valery Popov;
Eastern - "We Can Do Anything" (1994) by Alexander Chernitsky;
Adventure novel - “I am not me” (1992) by Alexei Slapovsky (and his “rock ballad” “Idol”, “thug romance” “Hook”, “street romance” “Brothers”);
"new detective" B. Akunin;
"ladies' detective" D. Dontsova, T. Polyakova and others.
The work that embodied almost all the features of modern Russian prose was "Ice" by Vladimir Sorokin. Shortlisted for 2002. The work caused a wide resonance due to the active opposition of the “Walking Together” movement, which accuses Sorokin of pornography. V. Sorokin withdrew his candidacy from the short list.
The result of blurring the boundaries between high and mass literature (along with the expansion of the genre repertoire) was the final collapse of cultural taboos (prohibitions), including: the use of obscene (profanity) vocabulary - with the publication of Eduard Limonov's novel "It's me - Eddie!" (1990), works by Timur Kibirov and Viktor Erofeev; to discuss in the literature the problems of drugs (Andrey Salomatov's novel "The Kandinsky Syndrome" (1994) and sexual minorities (a sensation in 1993 was the two-volume collected works of Evgeny Kharitonov "Tears on Flowers").
From the writer's program to create a "book for everyone" - both for the traditional consumer of "non-commercial" literature and for the general reading public - a "new fiction" arises (its formula was proposed by the publisher of the almanac "End of the Century": "Detective, but written in good language" The trend of the postmodern period can be considered as a setting for "readability", "interestingness".
The “fantasy” genre, having turned out to be the most viable of all new genre formations, was the starting point for one of the most notable phenomena in the latest Russian literature - this is the prose of fiction, or fiction-prose - fantasy literature, “modern fairy tales”, the authors of which do not display, but invent new absolutely implausible artistic realities.
Fiction is the literature of the fifth dimension, as the unbridled author's imagination becomes, creating virtual artistic worlds- quasi-geographical and pseudo-historical.
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