Sections: Literature

Explanatory note

In the formation of a harmoniously developed and spiritually rich personality, capable of creating new life V Russian Federation, plays an important role fiction and her teaching in high school.

Today in Russia, books of hundreds of different titles appear every day. For the modern reader this is a real challenge. More and more writers are striving to gain reader recognition and, with luck, popularity. How to navigate this growing flow of literature? IN market economy Reader preferences are partly reflected in book circulation. When buying a book, a person seems to vote: I need this book, I am ready to pay for it, I want to see it in my home, on my desk. It helps me become myself, realize why I live, or just have fun, disconnect from everyday worries. Another opportunity to find out the literary tastes of society is prizes for literary works, of which there were quite a lot in the 90s of the 20th century, as well as the opinions of literary critics. They read books before others, expressing their views on what they read in the media and on popular websites. Critics' ratings certainly influence the tastes and preferences of readers, but their point of view is not final and unconditional. It is the reader who ultimately decides how “classic” and “long-lasting” this or that writer, this or that book is.

The purpose of our course is to help high school students form their own idea of ​​the modern literary process, its trends, issues and aesthetic positions authors of works that have received recognition in the literary community. By interpreting the works they read and comparing their judgments with the assessments of experts, ultimately the high school student will be able to freely navigate the modern sea of ​​book production and, perhaps, find “his” book and “his” writer.

Of course, only a few of the works we offer will become national classics and required reading for everyone educated person, but still it is these works that are in the spotlight, they are talked about, argued about, some of them are awarded literary prizes. It is inherent in the Russian mentality that “well-read” or at least awareness of the modern literary process is an important evidence of a person’s intelligence. And intelligence is a modern synonym for decent behavior and a humanistic way of thinking. This course is designed for 34 hours (1 hour per week). The indicated number of hours is approximate; the teacher can change it based on specific working conditions or for his own methodological reasons.

Basic requirements for knowledge, skills and abilities of students

As a result of completing the elective course, students must:

1. read and, under the guidance of a teacher, study the works of modern Russian authors;
2. be able to characterize and evaluate the main characters, know the problems of the works and their ideological meaning;
3. be able to evaluate a work based on personal perception;
4. be able to competently express and justify their attitude towards work of art, give a message or report at literary theme, participate in a conversation, debate, write essays of different genres;
5. Having studied a minimum of works, be prepared to independently search for the book you need, and navigate the development of modern literature in general.
6. be able to compare the work with film and television adaptations and performances.

Forms of monitoring students' knowledge.

1. Oral and written detailed answers to questions.
2. Seminars and colloquia.
3. Drawing up a plan and theses based on the biography of writers.
4. Drawing up questions to characterize the hero and evaluate the work as a whole.
5. Preparation of oral reports about the read work and its author.
6. Writing essays, reports, abstracts.
7. Creation of computer presentations.
8. Participation in scientific and practical conferences.
9. Credit for the course.

Educational and thematic plan

№	Subject	Number of hours	Lesson form. Types of student activities
1	Introduction. Main directions and trends in the development of modern literature	1	Teacher lecture
2	Neorealism (New Realistic Prose)
	Vladimir Makanin "Underground, or Hero of Our Time"	1	Teacher's lecture, student messages
	Lyudmila Ulitskaya “The Kukotsky Case”, “Daniel Stein, translator”	2	Lecture, drawing up a lecture plan, seminar
	Andrey Volos “Khurramabad”, “Real Estate”	2	Messages, student reports
	Alexey Slapovsky “I am not me”	1	Making questions based on the text
3	Military theme in modern Russian literature
	Victor Astafiev "The Jolly Soldier"	1	Dispute
	Arkady Babchenko "Alkhan-Yurt"	1	Reports, presentation
	Anatoly Azolsky “Saboteur”	1	Teacher lecture
4	Russian postmodernism
	Venedikt Erofeev “Moscow – Petushki”	1	Commented reading
	Victor Pelevin “Life of Insects”, “Generation “II”	2	Lecture, abstracts, reports
	Dmitry Galkovsky "Endless Dead End"	1	Student messages
	Vladimir Sorokin “Queue”	1	Lecture, student reports
	Test on the topics studied	1	Written detailed answer
5	Modern poetry
	Joseph Brodsky	2	Lecture, presentation, seminar, colloquium
	Conceptualism Timur Kibirov, Dmitry Prigov, Lev Rubinstein, Vsevolod Nekrasov, Sergey Gandlevsky, Denis Novikov	3	Colloquium, commented reading, reports, abstracts
	Metarealism Ivan Zhdanov, Alexander Eremenko, Olga Sudakova, Alexey Parshchikov	3	Commented readings, reports, presentations
6	Science fiction, utopia and dystopia
	Arkady and Boris Strugatsky “Inhabited Island”	1	Presentation, reports
	Sergei Lukyanenko “Emperors of Illusions”, “Dancing in the Snow”, “Night Watch”, “Day Watch”	3	Lecture, student reports
7	Dramaturgy
	Ksenia Dragunskaya “Red Play” Nina Sadur "Pannochka" Evgeny Grishkovets “How I Ate the Dog”	2	Seminar, attending performances
8	Revival of the detective
	Alexandra Marinina Boris Akunin Daria Dontsova	3	Lecture, debate, presentations, reports
	Final test on the topics studied	1	Written detailed answer to a question

Introduction.

General trends in the development of artistic and ideological-moral traditions of modern literature. Versatility, variety of genres and directions.

Block 1. New realistic prose.

Neorealism is a synthesis of the artistic experience of realist writers of the 19th century with the postmodernist thinking of people at the end of the 20th century. Search for new aesthetic principles, different from the critical realism of the 19th century and socialist realism. Vladimir Makanin “Undergrand, or Hero of Our Time” - the fate of the “sixties” in the era of the late nineties. Italian Pene Prize 1999. Lyudmila Ulitskaya is a two-time winner of the Booker Prize (for the novels “The Case of Kukotsky” and “Daniel Stein, Translator”). “Kukotsky’s Case” - a combination of traditional outline family romance with the philosophical and mystical side of the heroes’ lives, the transformation of familiar reality into multidimensionality corresponding to the worldview modern man. Screen adaptation of the novel. “Daniel Stein, Translator” is about the wanderings of the spirit in the world of darkness, about how to find the light in yourself and around you. Andrey Volos “Khurramabad” is a novel about the life of several generations of Russians in Tajikistan, about their forced transformation into refugees. This is an artistic representation of what turns out to be one's own and someone else's. The novel “Real Estate” is about the work of a realtor, the notorious housing issue. Psychological realism, recreating the flavor of time.

“I am not me” by Alexey Slapovsky is an adventurous and philosophical modern “plutish” novel.

Block 2. Military theme in modern Russian literature.

A new look at war, the “human scale” of its perception, reflections on the “price of Victory”, the tragedy of ethical conflicts in which a person finds himself at war - this is what the novel “The Jolly Soldier” by the writer of the “military generation” Viktor Astafiev is about.

Arkady Babchenko is a laureate of the Debut Prize. The story “Alkhan-Yurt” is based on personal impressions and tells about one episode of the Chechen campaign. The meaninglessness of war is the central theme of the story. Anatoly Azolsky is a laureate of awards from the magazines “Friendship of Peoples” (1999) and “ New world"(2000). The novel “Saboteur” is the humanistic pathos of modern military literature, the preservation of the traditions of military prose in the works of young writers.

Block 3. Postmodernism.

The origins of Russian postmodernism - the poem “Moscow - Cockerels” by Venedikt Erofeev - free handling of Russian classics, a mixture of high and low, irony and grotesque.

Victor Pelevin “The Life of Insects” – reminiscences from popular stories, an ironic interpretation of myths and stereotypes. “Generation “P” is a journey into virtual reality. Dmitry Galkovsky is a laureate of the Anti-Booker Prize. The novel “Endless Dead End” is intertextuality, the merging of reality and literature.

The work of Vladimir Sorokin and his novel “The Queue” is parodic stylization, naturalism, destruction of established literary genres.

Block 4. Contemporary poetry.

The work of Joseph Brodsky (biography, themes and motives of lyrics, landscape, image of time, lyrical hero, language and artistic techniques) Conceptualism and its origins. The concept of "concept". Conceptual schools. The work of some conceptual poets and their poetic language. Metarealism as a poetic direction. The work of some poets - metarealists.

Block 5. Science fiction, utopia and dystopia.

The rise of the dystopian genre in the 20th century. Human psychology and the psychology of society in the dystopia of the Strugatsky brothers “Inhabited Island.” Sergei Lukyanenko is the best European science fiction writer of 2003. The responsibility of Lukyanenko’s heroes for the world in which they live, the combination of questions specific to science fiction with truthful, memorable images.

Block 6. Features of modern dramaturgy.

Search for special artistic means and language. Nina Sadur's dramaturgy is an integral part of avant-garde culture. The play “Pannochka” is an unusual interpretation of Gogol’s story “Viy”. The originality and metaphorical nature of the play is the confession of Evgeny Grishkovets “How I Ate a Dog”, the color symbolism and psychologism of the “Red Play” by Ksenia Dragunskaya. Film version of the play.

Block 7. Revival of the detective.

Specifics of the detective genre. Why do people love detective stories? The revival of the detective story in the late 80s of the 20th century. Psychological detective stories by Alexandra Marinina, retro detective stories by Boris Akunin, ironic detective stories by Daria Dontsova.

List of literature for teachers and students

1. In the world of literature, grade 11; textbook For educational institutions humanitarian profile, /ed. A.G. Kutuzova. M.: “Drofa”, 2002.
2. Russian literature of the 20th century, grade 11; textbook-workshop for educational institutions / ed. Y.I.Lysogo - M. “Mnemosyne”, 2005.
3. Contemporary Russian literature; textbook a guide for high school students and those entering universities, /ed. B.A. Lanina, M.: “Ventana-Graf”, 2006.
4. Chalmaev V.A., Zinin S.A. Russian literature of the 20th century: textbook for grade 11; in 2 hours - M.: “TID” Russian word", 2006.

Internet literary resources

1. “Bukinist” – mybooka.narod.ru
2. “Debut” – www.mydebut.ru
3. “Babylon” – www.vavilon.ru
4. “Victor Pelevin” – pelevin.nov.ru
5. “Graphomania” – www.grafomania.msk.ru
6. “Interactive fiction” – if.gr.ru
7. “Joseph Brodsky” – gozepf Brodsky.narod.ru
8. “Islet” – www.ostrovok.de
9. “Modern Russian poetry” – poet.da.ru
10. “Fandorin” – www.fandorin.ru

In addition, each writer has his own individual website. Internet searches are endless, so this list is open ended and could go on.

Contemporary Russian literature (literature of the late 20th century - early 21st century)

Direction,

its time frame

Content

(definition, his “identification marks”)

Representatives

1.Postmodernism

(early 1970s - early 21st century)

1. This is a philosophical and cultural movement, a special state of mind. It arose in France in the 1960s in an atmosphere of intellectual resistance to the total attack of mass culture on human consciousness. In Russia, when Marxism collapsed as an ideology providing a reasonable approach to life, rational explanation disappeared and awareness of irrationality set in. Postmodernism focused attention on the phenomenon of fragmentation, splitness of the individual’s consciousness. Postmodernism does not give advice, but describes a state of consciousness. The art of postmodernism is ironic, sarcastic, grotesque (according to I.P. Ilyin)

2. According to the critic B.M. Paramonov, “postmodernism is the irony of a sophisticated person who does not deny the high, but has understood the need for the low”

His “identification marks”: 1. Rejection of any hierarchy. The boundaries between high and low, important and secondary, real and fictional, author and non-author have been erased. All style and genre differences have been removed, all taboos, including profanity. There is no respect for any authorities or shrines. There is no desire for any positive ideal. The most important techniques: grotesque; irony reaching the point of cynicism; oxymoron.

2.Intertextuality (quotation). Since the boundaries between reality and literature are abolished, the entire world is perceived as text. The postmodernist is sure that one of his tasks is to interpret the heritage of the classics. At the same time, the plot of the work most often does not have independent meaning, and the main thing for the author becomes a game with the reader, who is supposed to identify plot moves, motives, images, hidden and obvious reminiscences (borrowing from classical works, designed for the reader's memory) in the text.

3.Expanding the readership by attracting mass genres: detective stories, melodramas, science fiction.

The works that laid the foundation for modern Russian postmodernism

prose, traditionally considered “Pushkin House” by Andrei Bitov and “Moscow-Petushki” by Venedikt Erofeev. (although the novel and story were written in the late 1960s, facts literary life they became available only in the late 1980s, after publication.

2.Neorealism

(newrealism, new realism)

(1980s-1990s)

Borders are very fluid

This is a creative method that is based on tradition and at the same time can use the achievements of other creative methods, combining reality and phantasmagoria.

"Life-likeness" ceases to be main characteristic realistic writing; legends, myth, revelation, utopia are organically combined with the principles of realistic knowledge of reality.

The documentary “truth of life” is being squeezed out into thematically limited spheres of literature, recreating the life of a particular “local society”, be it the “army chronicles” of O. Ermakov, O. Khandus, A. Terekhov or the new “village” stories of A. Varlamov (“ House in the village"). However, the attraction to the literally understood realistic tradition is most clearly manifested in the mass pulp fiction– in detective stories and “police” novels by A. Marinina, F. Neznansky, Ch. Abdullaev and others.

Vladimir Makanin “Underground, or Hero of Our Time”;

Lyudmila Ulitskaya “Medea and her children”;

Alexey Slapovsky “I am not me”

(the first steps were taken in the late 1970s in the “prose of forty-year-olds,” which includes the works of V. Makanin, A. Kim, R. Kireev, A. Kurchatkin and some other writers.

3Neo-naturalism

Its origins lie in the “natural school” of Russian realism of the 19th century, with its focus on recreating any aspect of life and the absence of thematic restrictions.

The main objects of the image: a) marginal spheres of reality (prison life, nightlife streets, “everyday life” of a garbage dump); b) marginal heroes who “fell out” of the usual social hierarchy (homeless people, thieves, prostitutes, murderers). There is a “physiological” spectrum of literary themes: alcoholism, sexual lust, violence, illness and death). It is significant that the life of the “bottom” is interpreted not as a “different” life, but as everyday life naked in its absurdity and cruelty: a zone, an army or a city garbage dump is a society in “miniature”, the same laws apply in it as in “ normal" world. However, the border between the worlds is conditional and permeable, and “normal” everyday life often looks outwardly like a “refined” version of the “dump”

Sergei Kaledin “Humble Cemetery” (1987), “Building Battalion” (1989);

Oleg Pavlov “The State Fairy Tale” (1994) and “Karaganda Departures, or the Tale last days"(2001);

Roman Senchin “Minus” (2001) and “Athens Nights”

4.Neosentimentalism

(new sentimentalism)

This is a literary movement that returns and actualizes the memory of cultural archetypes.

The main subject of the image is private life (and often intimate life), perceived as the main value. The “sensitivity” of modern times is opposed to the apathy and skepticism of postmodernism; it has passed the phase of irony and doubt. In a completely fictitious world, only feelings and bodily sensations can claim authenticity.

The so-called women's prose: M. Paley “Cabiria from the Bypass Canal”,

M. Vishnevetskaya “The Moon Came Out of the Fog”, L. Ulitskaya “The Case of Kukotsky”, works by Galina Shcherbakova

5.Postrealism

(or metarealism)

Since the beginning of the 1990s.

This literary direction, an attempt to restore integrity, to attach a thing to meaning, an idea to reality; the search for truth, genuine values, appeal to eternal themes or eternal prototypes of modern themes, saturation with archetypes: love, death, word, light, earth, wind, night. The material is history, nature, high culture. (according to M. Epstein)

“A new “artistry paradigm” is being born. It is based on the universally understood principle of relativity, dialogical comprehension of the continuously changing world and the openness of the author’s position in relation to it,” write M. Lipovetsky and N. Leiderman about post-realism.

The prose of post-realism carefully examines “the complex philosophical collisions unfolding in the daily struggle of the “little man” with the impersonal, alienated chaos of everyday life.

Private life is conceptualized as a unique “cell” of universal history, created by the individual efforts of a person, imbued with personal meanings, “stitched” with the threads of a wide variety of connections with the biographies and destinies of other people.

Post-realist writers:

L.Petrushevskaya

V. Makanin

S. Dovlatov

A. Ivanchenko

F. Gorenshtein

N. Kononov

O. Slavnikova

Yu. Buida

A. Dmitriev

M. Kharitonov

V. Sharov

6.Post-postmodernism

(at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries)

Its aesthetic specificity is determined primarily by the formation of a new artistic environment - the environment of “techno-images”. Unlike traditional “text images,” they require interactive perception of cultural objects: contemplation/analysis/interpretation are replaced by the project activity of the reader or viewer.

The artistic object “dissolves” in the activity of the addressee, continuously transforming in cyberspace and becoming directly dependent on the design skills of the reader.

The characteristic features of the Russian version of post-postmodernism are new sincerity, new humanism, new utopianism, a combination of interest in the past with openness to the future, subjunctiveness.

Boris Akunin

P R O Z A (active lecture)

Leading themes in modern literature:

Autobiography in modern literature

A.P. Chudakov. “Darkness falls on the cold steps”

A. Naiman “Stories about Anna Akhmatova”, “The Glorious End of Inglorious Generations”, “Sir”

L. Zorin “Proscenium”

N. Korzhavin “In the temptations of the bloody era”

A. Terekhov “Babaev”

E. Popov “The True History of the Green Musicians”

New realistic prose

V. Makanin “Underground, or Hero of Our Time”

L. Ulitskaya “Medea and her children”, “Kukotsky’s incident”

A. Volos “Khurramabad”, “Real Estate”

A. Slapovsky “I am not me”

M. Vishnevetskaya “The month has emerged from the fog”

N. Gorlanova, V. Bucur “Novel of Education”

M. Butov “Freedom”

D. Bykov “Spelling”

A. Dmitriev “The Tale of the Lost”

M. Paley “Cabiria from the Bypass Canal”

Military theme in modern literature

V. Astafiev “The Jolly Soldier”, “Cursed and Killed”

O. Blotsky “Dragonfly”

S. Dyshev “See you in heaven”

G. Vladimov “The General and His Army”

O. Ermakov “Baptism”

A. Babchenko “Alkhan – Yurt”

A. Azalsky “Saboteur”

The fate of Russian emigration literature: the “third wave”

V. Voinovich “Moscow 2042”, “Monumental Propaganda”

V. Aksenov “Island of Crimea”, “Moscow Saga”

A. Gladilin “Big running day”, “Shadow of the rider”

A. Zinoviev “Russian destiny. Confession of a renegade"

S. Dovlatov “Reserve”, “Foreign Woman. Branch"

Y. Mamleev “Eternal Home”

A. Solzhenitsyn “A calf butted an oak tree”, “A grain landed between two millstones”, “Opening up your eyes”

S. Bolmat “On our own”

Y. Druzhnikov “Angels on the tip of a needle”

Russian postmodernism

A. Bitov " Pushkin House", V. Erofeev "Moscow-Petushki"

V. Sorokin “Queue”, V. Pelevin “Life of Insects”

D. Galkovsky “Endless Dead End”

Y. Buida “Prussian Bride”

E.Ger “The Gift of the Word”

P. Krusanov “Angel Bite”

Transformation of history in modern literature

S. Abramov “A quiet angel flew by”

V. Zalotukha “The Great March for the Liberation of India (Revolutionary Chronicle)”

E. Popov “The Soul of a Patriot, or Various Messages to Ferfichkin”

V. Pietsukh “Enchanted Country”

V. Shchepetnev “The sixth part of darkness”

Science fiction, utopia and dystopia in modern literature

A. Gladilin “French Soviet Socialist Republic”

V. Makanin “Laz”

V. Rybakov “Gravilet “Tsesarevich”

O. Divov “Culling”

D. Bykov “Justification”

Y. Latynina “Draw”

Contemporary essays

I. Brodsky “Less than one”, “One and a half rooms”

S. Lurie “Interpretation of Fate”, “Conversation in favor of the dead”, “Advances of clairvoyance”

V. Erofeev “Wake for Soviet Literature”, “Russian Flowers of Evil”, “In the Labyrinth of Damned Questions”

B. Paramonov “The End of Style: Postmodernism”, “Trace”

A. Genis “One: Cultural Studies”, “Two: Investigations”, “Three: Personal”

Contemporary poetry.

Poetry at the turn of the 20th and early 21st centuries was influenced by postmodernism. In modern poetry, there are two main poetic movements:

CONCEPTUAL ISM

m e t a r e a l i s m

Appears in 1970. The definition is based on the idea of ​​a concept (concept - from the Latin “notion”) - a concept, an idea that arises in a person when perceiving the meaning of a word. A concept in artistic creativity is not just the lexical meaning of a word, but also those complex associations that arise in every person in connection with a word; the concept translates the lexical meaning into the sphere of concepts and images, providing rich opportunities for its free interpretation, conjecture and imagination. The same concept can be understood different people differently, depending on each person's personal perception, education, cultural level and specific context.

Therefore Sun. Nekrasov, who stood at the source of conceptualism, proposed the term “contextualism.”

Representatives of the direction: Timur Kibirov, Dmitry Prigov, Lev Rubinstein and others.

This is a literary movement that depicts a deliberately complicated picture of the world around us with the help of detailed, interpenetrating metaphors. Metarealism is not a denial of traditional, customary realism, but an expansion of it, a complication of the very concept of reality. Poets see not only the concrete, visible world, but also many secret things not visible to the naked eye, and receive the gift of insight into their very essence. After all, the reality that surrounds us is not the only one, meta-realist poets believe.

Representatives of the direction: Ivan Zhdanov, Alexander Eremenko, Olga Sedakova and others.

Modern dramaturgy

L. Petrushevskaya “What to do?”, “Men’s zone. Cabaret", "Twenty-Five Again", "Date"

A. Galin “Czech photo”

N. Sadur “Wonderful Woman”, “Pannochka”

N. Kolyada “Boater”

K. Dragunskaya “Red Play”

Revival of the detective

D. Dontsova “Ghost in Sneakers”, “Viper in Syrup”

B. Akunin “Pelageya and the White Bulldog”

V. Lavrov “Grad Sokolov – detective genius”

N. Leonov “Defense of Gurov”

A. Marinina “Stolen Dream”, “Death for the Sake of Death”

T. Polyakova “My favorite killer”

Literature used:

T.G. Cucina. Modern domestic literary process. 11th grade. Tutorial. Elective courses. M. "Bustard", 2006.

B.A. Lanina. Contemporary Russian literature. 10-11 grade. M., "Ventana-Graf", 2005.

From the perspective of the formation of Russian literature, the first decade of the 21st century is the most indicative.

In the 90s, a kind of “reboot” of the Russian literary process took place: along with the beginning of the book boom and the emergence of “returned literature,” we witnessed a certain struggle of Russian writers with the temptation of permissiveness, which was overcome only by the beginning of the 2000s. That is why the process of consciously laying the foundation of a new literature should be attributed to the beginning of the new century.

Generations of writers and genres of modern literature

Modern Russian literature is represented by several generations of writers:

• the sixties, who declared themselves back during the “thaw” (Voinovich, Aksyonov, Rasputin, Iskander), professing a unique style of ironic nostalgia and often turning to the genre of memoirs;
• “Seventies”, the Soviet literary generation (Bitov, Erofeev, Makanin, Tokareva), who began their literary journey in conditions of stagnation and professed the creative credo: “It is the circumstances that are bad, not the person”;
• the perestroika generation (Tolstaya, Slavnikova, ,), which actually opened the era of uncensored literature and engaged in bold literary experiments;
• writers of the late 90s (Kochergin, Gutsko, Prilepin), who made up the group of the youngest figures in the literary process.

Among the general genre diversity of modern literature, the following main directions stand out:

• postmodernism (Shishkin, Limonov, Sharov, Sorokin);

• “women’s prose” (Ulitskaya, Tokareva, Slavnikova);

• mass literature (Ustinova, Dashkova, Grishkovets).

Literary trends of our time in the mirror of literary awards

In considering the literary process in Russia in the 2000s, it would be most revealing to refer to the list of laureates , Moreover, the awards were predominantly non-state ones, since they were more focused on the reader’s market, and therefore better reflected the main aesthetic needs of the reading public in the past decade. At the same time, practice indicates the definition of the distinction between aesthetic functions between awards.

As is known, the phenomenon of postmodernism arises and strengthens simultaneously with the growing need to reassess cultural or historical experience. This trend was reflected in the Russian Booker Prize, which announced itself back in the early 90s, which at the beginning of the century continued to “collect” under its auspices examples of literary postmodernism, designed to introduce the reader to a “parallel culture.”

During this period, awards were given to:

• O. Pavlov for “Karaganda destinies”,
• M. Elizarov for the alternative history “Librarian”,
• V. Aksenov for a fresh look at the Enlightenment in “The Voltairians and Voltairians.”

At the same time, the winners of the “National Bestseller”, which determined the genre diversity of the laureates, in different years have become completely diverse

Reading Russia has witnessed another interesting trend, demonstrating public interest in major literary forms so familiar to admirers of classical Russian literature. This phenomenon was reflected, first of all, on the winners of the “Big Book” award, where the traditional literary presentation and the volume of the work were put at the forefront.

During the mentioned period, the “Big Book” was received by:

• D. Bykov, again for “ Boris Pasternak»,
• for the military biographical “My Lieutenant”,
• V. Makanin for the modern Chechen saga “Asan”.

Also noteworthy was the accompanying “ Big book» the practice of “special prizes” that awarded the works of Solzhenitsyn and Chekhov, which made it possible to stimulate mass interest in the works of the classics.
The subcultural segment of literature was provided at this time, first of all, with the help, since the choice of the laureate here was carried out either using online surveys or based on the results of network sales in online stores.

Our presentation

The trends considered indicate the syncretism of the modern literary process. The modern reader, as well as the writer, is looking for the most acceptable option for obtaining a new literary experience - from familiar classicism to catchy postmodernism, which means that domestic culture meets the challenges of the 21st century with living and developing literature.

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Modern literary process

Literature is an integral part of a person’s life, his unique photograph, which perfectly describes everything internal states, as well as social laws. Like history, literature develops, changes, becomes qualitatively new. Of course, one cannot say that modern literature is better or worse than what came before. She's just different. Now others literary genres, other problems that the author covers are other authors, after all. But whatever one may say, the “Pushkins” and “Turgenevs” are not the same now, this is not the time. Sensitive, always sensitively responding to the mood of the time, Russian literature today reveals a kind of panorama of a divided soul, in which the past and present are intertwined in a bizarre way. Literary process since the 80s. twentieth century, indicated its unconventionality, dissimilarity from previous stages of development artistic word. There's been a change artistic eras, the evolution of the artist’s creative consciousness. At the center of modern books are moral and philosophical problems. The writers themselves, participating in debates about the modern literary process, perhaps agree on one thing: the latest literature is interesting because it aesthetically reflects our time. So, A. Varlamov writes: " Modern literature, no matter what crisis it may be in, preserves time. This is its purpose, the future - this is its addressee, for the sake of which one can endure the indifference of both the reader and the ruler".P. Aleshkovsky continues the thought of his colleague: " One way or another, literature constructs life. He builds a model, tries to hook and highlight certain types. The plot, as you know, has remained unchanged since ancient times. Overtones are important... There is a writer - and there is Time - something non-existent, elusive, but alive and pulsating - something with which the writer always plays cat and mouse".

Back in the early 80s, two camps of writers took shape in Russian literature: representatives of Soviet literature and representatives of the literature of Russian emigration. It is interesting that with the death of the outstanding Soviet writers Trifonov, Kataev, Abramov, the camp of Soviet literature became significantly impoverished. There were no new writers in the Soviet Union. The concentration of a significant part of the creative intelligentsia abroad led to the fact that hundreds of poets, writers, and figures in various fields of culture and art continued to create outside their homeland. And only since 1985, Russian literature, for the first time after a 70-year break, had the opportunity to be a single whole: the literature of Russian emigration from all three waves of Russian emigration merged with it - after the civil war of 1918-1920, after World War II and the Brezhnev era. Returning back, the works of emigration quickly joined the stream of Russian literature and culture. Participants in the literary process were literary texts that were banned during the period of their writing (the so-called “returned literature”). Domestic literature has been significantly enriched by previously prohibited works, such as A. Platonov’s novels “The Pit” and “Chevengur”, E. Zamyatin’s dystopia “We”, B. Pilnyak’s story “Mahogany”, B. Pasternak’s “Doctor Zhivago”, “ Requiem" and "Poem without a Hero" by A. Akhmatova and many others. “All these authors are united by the pathos of studying the causes and consequences of deep social deformations” (N. Ivanova “Questions of Literature”).

Three main components of the modern literary process can be distinguished: literature of Russian abroad; "returned" literature; actually modern literature. Giving a clear and succinct definition of the last of them is still not an easy task. In modern literature, such trends as avant-garde and post-avant-garde, modern and postmodern, surrealism, impressionism, neosentimentalism, metarealism, social art, conceptualism, etc. have appeared or been revived.

But against the backdrop of postmodernist trends, “classical, traditional” literature continues to exist: neorealists, postrealists, traditionalists not only continue to write, but also actively fight against the “pseudoliterature” of postmodernity. We can say that the entire literary community is divided into those who are “for” and those who are “against” new trends, and literature itself has turned into an arena of struggle between two large blocs - traditionalist writers oriented towards the classical understanding artistic creativity, and postmodernists, who hold radically opposing views. This struggle influences both the ideological, content and formal levels of the emerging works.

The complex picture of aesthetic dispersion is complemented by the situation in the field of Russian poetry at the end of the century. It is generally accepted that prose dominates the modern literary process. Poetry bears the same burden of time, the same features of a troubled and scattered era, the same desires to enter new specific zones of creativity. Poetry, more painfully than prose, feels the loss of reader attention and its own role as an emotional stimulant of society.

In the 60-80s, poets entered Soviet literature who brought with them a lot of new things and developed old traditions. The themes of their work are diverse, and their poetry is deeply lyrical and intimate. But the theme of the Motherland has never left the pages of our literature. Her images, associated either with the nature of her native village or with the places where people fought, can be found in almost every work. And each author has his own perception and feeling of the Motherland. We find insightful lines about Russia from Nikolai Rubtsov (1936-1971), who feels like the heir to centuries-old Russian history. Critics believe that the work of this poet combined the traditions of Russian poetry of the 19th-20th centuries - Tyutchev, Fet, Blok, Yesenin.

Our contemporaries invariably associate the name of Rasul Gamzatov (1923) with eternal themes. Sometimes they say about him that his future path is difficult to predict. He is so unexpected in his work: from winged jokes to the tragic “Cranes”, from the prose “encyclopedia” “My Dagestan” to the aphorisms “Inscriptions on Daggers”. But still it is not difficult to isolate the themes on which his poetry is based. This is devotion to the Motherland , respect for elders, admiration for a woman, a mother, a worthy continuation of the father’s work. Reading the poems of Rubtsov, Gamzatov, and other wonderful poets of our time, you see a huge one. life experience a person who expresses in his poetry what is difficult for us to express.

One of the main ideas of modern poetry is citizenship, the main thoughts are conscience and duty. Yevgeny Yevtushenko belongs to the social poets, patriots, and citizens. His work is a reflection on his generation, on kindness and malice, on opportunism, cowardice and careerism.

The role of dystopia

Genre diversity and blurred boundaries for a long time did not allow us to detect typological patterns in the evolution of literary genres at the end of the century. However, the second half of the 1990s has already made it possible to observe a certain commonality in the picture of the diffusion of the genres of prose and poetry, in the emergence of innovations in the field of the so-called “new drama”. It is obvious that large prose forms have left the stage of fiction, and the “credit of trust” in the authoritarian narrative has been lost. First of all, the genre of the novel experienced this. Modifications of his genre changes demonstrated the process of "collapse", giving way to small genres with their openness to various types form-creation.

Dystopia occupies a special place in genre form-making. Losing its formal, rigid features, it is enriched by new qualities, the main one of which is a unique worldview. Dystopia has had and continues to influence the formation of a special type of artistic thinking, a type of statement based on the “photo negative” principle. The peculiarity of dystopian thought lies in its destructive ability to break the usual patterns of perception of the surrounding life. Aphorisms from the book Vic. Erofeev's "Encyclopedia of the Russian Soul" ironically, "in reverse" formulate this type of relationship between literature and reality: "For a Russian, every day there is an apocalypse," "Our people will live badly, but not for long." Classic examples of dystopia, such as the novel “We” by E. Zamyatin, “Invitation to an Execution” by V. Nabokov, “The Castle” by F. Kafka, “Animal Farm” and “1984” by J. Orwell, at one time played the role of prophecies. Then these books stood on a par with others, and most importantly - with another reality that opened its abysses. “Utopias are terrible because they come true,” N. Berdyaev once wrote. A classic example is A. Tarkovsky’s “Stalker” and the subsequent Chernobyl disaster with the Death Zone deployed around these places. The “inner hearing” of Makanin’s gift led the writer to the phenomenon of a dystopian text: The issue of the magazine “New World” with V. Makanin’s dystopian story “One-Day War” was signed for publication exactly two weeks before September 11, 2001, when the terrorist attack hit America was the beginning of the “uninvited war.” The plot of the story, for all its fantastic nature, seems copied from real events. The text appears to chronicle the events that followed in New York on September 11, 2001. Thus, the writer writing a dystopia moves along the path of gradually drawing the real outlines of the very abyss into which humanity, man, is directed. Among such writers, prominent figures include V. Pietsukh, A. Kabakov, L. Petrushevskaya, V. Makanin, V. Rybakov, T. Tolstoy and others.

In the 1920s, E. Zamyatin, one of the founders of Russian dystopia, promised that literature in the 20th century would come to a combination of the fantastic with everyday life and would become that devilish mixture, the secret of which Hieronymus Bosch knew so well. The literature of the end of the century exceeded all the Master's expectations.

Classification of modern Russian literature.

Modern Russian literature is classified into:

· Neoclassical prose

· Conditional-metaphorical prose

· "Other prose"

· Postmodernism

Neoclassical prose addresses social and ethical problems of life, based on the realistic tradition, inherits the “teacher” and “preaching” orientation of Russian classical literature. The life of society in neoclassical prose is main theme, and the meaning of life is the main issue. The author's worldview is expressed through the hero, the hero himself inherits the active life position, he takes on the role of judge. The peculiarity of neoclassical prose is that the author and the hero are in a state of dialogue. It is characterized by a naked view of the terrible, monstrous in its cruelty and immorality phenomena of our life, but the principles of love, kindness, brotherhood - and - most importantly - conciliarity - determine the existence of a Russian person in it. Representatives of neoclassical prose include: V. Astafiev “Sad Detective”, “The Damned and the Killed”, “The Cheerful Soldier”, V. Rasputin “To the Same Land”, “Fire”, B. Vasiliev “Quench My Sorrows”, A. Pristavkin “The Golden Cloud Spent the Night”, D. Bykov “Spelling”, M. Vishnevetskaya “The Moon Came Out of the Fog”, L. Ulitskaya “The Case of Kukotsky”, “Medea and Her Children”, A. Volos “Real Estate”, M. Paley " Kabiria from the Obvodny Canal."

In conventionally metaphorical prose, a myth, a fairy tale, a scientific concept form a bizarre but recognizable modern world. Spiritual inferiority and dehumanization acquire material embodiment in metaphor, people turn into various animals, predators, werewolves. Conventional metaphorical prose in real life sees the absurd, guesses catastrophic paradoxes in everyday life, uses fantastic assumptions, tests the hero with extraordinary possibilities. She is not characterized by psychological volume of character. A characteristic genre of conditionally metaphorical prose is dystopia. The following authors and their works belong to conditionally metaphorical prose: F. Iskander “Rabbits and Boas”, V. Pelevin “The Life of Insects”, “Omon Ra”, D. Bykov “Justification”, T. Tolstaya “Kys”, V. Makanin “Laz”, V. Rybakov “Gravilet”, “Tsesarevich”, L. Petrushevskaya “New Robinsons”, A. Kabakov “Defector”, S. Lukyanenko “Spectrum”.

“Other prose,” unlike conventionally metaphorical prose, does not create a fantastic world, but reveals the fantastic in the surrounding, real. It usually depicts a destroyed world, everyday life, a fractured history, a torn culture, a world of socially “shifted” characters and circumstances. It is characterized by the features of opposition to officialdom, a rejection of established stereotypes, and moralizing. The ideal in it is either implied or looms, and author's position disguised. Randomness reigns in the plots. “Other prose” is not characterized by a traditional author-reader dialogue. Representatives of this prose are: V. Erofeev, V. Pietsukh, T. Tolstaya, L. Petrushevskaya, L. Gabyshev.

Postmodernism is one of the most influential cultural phenomena of the second half of the 20th century. In postmodernism, the image of the world is built on the basis of intracultural connections. The will and laws of culture are higher than the will and laws of “reality”. At the end of the 1980s, it became possible to talk about postmodernism as an integral part of literature, but by the beginning of the 21st century we have to state the end of the “postmodern era.” The most characteristic definitions that accompany the concept of “reality” in the aesthetics of postmodernism are chaotic, changeable, fluid, incomplete, fragmentary; the world is the “scattered links” of existence, forming into bizarre and sometimes absurd patterns of human lives or into a temporarily frozen picture in the kaleidoscope of universal history. Unshakable universal values ​​are losing their axiom status in the postmodern picture of the world. Everything is relative. N. Leiderman and M. Lipovetsky write about this very accurately in their article “Life after death, or New information about realism”: “The unbearable lightness of being”, the weightlessness of all hitherto unshakable absolutes (not only universal, but also personal) - that’s it the tragic state of mind that postmodernism expressed."

Russian postmodernism had a number of features. First of all, it is a game, demonstrativeness, shockingness, playing on quotes from classical and socialist realist literature. Russian postmodernist creativity is non-evaluative creativity, containing categoricalness in the subconscious, beyond the boundaries of the text. Russian postmodern writers include: V. Kuritsyn “Dry thunderstorms: the flickering zone”, V. Sorokin “Blue lard”, V. Pelevin “Chapaev and Emptiness”, V. Makanin “Underground, or Hero of our time”, M. Butov "Freedom", A. Bitov "Pushkin House", V. Erofeev "Moscow - Cockerels", Y. Buida "Prussian Bride".

“Literature for a people deprived of public freedom is the only platform from the height of which they make them hear the cry of their indignation and their conscience,” wrote A.I. Herzen in the last century. For the first time in the entire centuries-old history of Russia, the government has now given us freedom of speech and press. But, despite the enormous role of the media, our country is the ruler of thoughts, raising layer after layer of problems in our history and life. Maybe E. Yevtushenko was right when he said: “A poet in Russia is more than a poet!..”.

In today's literature one can very clearly trace the artistic, historical, socio-political significance literary work in connection with the socio-political situation of the era. This formulation means that the characteristics of the era are reflected in the topic chosen by the author, his heroes, artistic means. These features can give a work great social and political significance. Thus, in the era of the decline of serfdom and the nobility, a number of works appeared about “ extra people", including the famous "Hero of Our Time" by M.Yu. Lermontov. The very title of the novel, the controversy surrounding it showed it public importance in the era of the Nicholas reaction. A.I. Solzhenitsyn’s story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich,” published during the period of criticism of Stalinism in the early 60s, was also of great importance. Contemporary works demonstrate an even greater connection than before between the era and the literary work. Now the task is to revive the rural owner. Literature responds to it with books about the dispossession and de-peasantization of the village.

The close connection between modernity and history even gives rise to new genres (for example, the novel - chronicle) and new visual means: documents are introduced into the text, time travel for many decades is popular, and more. The same applies to problems of environmental protection. It can't be tolerated anymore. The desire to help society forces writers, for example Valentin Rasputin, to move from novels and stories to journalism.

The first topic that unites very large number works written during the 50s - 80s are a problem of historical memory. The epigraph to it could be the words of Academician D.S. Likhachev: “Memory is active. It does not leave a person indifferent or inactive. She controls the mind and heart of a person. Memory resists the destructive power of time. This is the greatest meaning of memory."

“Blank spots” were formed (or rather, they were formed by those who constantly adapted history to their interests) not only in the history of the entire country, but also in its individual regions. Viktor Likhonosov’s book “Our Little Paris” about Kuban. He believes its historians owe a debt to their land. “Children grew up without knowledge of their native history.” About two years ago the writer was in America, where he met with residents of the Russian colony, emigrants and their descendants from the Kuban Cossacks. A storm of reader letters and responses was caused by the publication of the novel - the chronicle of Anatoly Znamensky “Red Days”, which reported new facts from the history of the civil war on the Don. The writer himself did not immediately come to the truth and only in the sixties realized that “we know nothing at all about that era.” In recent years, several new works have been published, such as Sergei Alekseev’s novel “Sedition,” but there is still a lot unknown.

The theme of those innocently repressed and tortured during the years of Stalin's terror is especially prominent. Alexander Solzhenitsyn did a tremendous amount of work in his “GULAG Archipelago.” In the afterword to the book, he says: “I stopped working not because I considered the book finished, but because there was no more life left for it. I not only ask for leniency, but I want to shout: when the time comes, the opportunity comes, gather together, friends, survivors, those who know well, and write another comment next to this one...” Thirty-four years have passed since they were written, no, these words are engraved on my heart. Solzhenitsyn himself has already edited the book abroad, dozens of new evidence have come out, and this call will remain, apparently, for many decades, both to the contemporaries of those tragedies, and to the descendants, before whom the archives of the executioners will finally open. After all, even the number of victims is unknown!.. The victory of democracy in August 1991 gives hope that the archives will soon be opened.

And therefore, the words of the already mentioned writer Znamensky seem to me not entirely true: “And how much should have been said about the past, it seems to me, has already been said by A.I. Solzhenitsyn, and in “Kolyma Stories” by Varlam Shalamov, and in the story “Bas-relief on rock" Aldan - Semenova. And I myself, 25 years ago, during the years of the so-called Thaw, paid tribute to this topic; my story about the camps entitled “Without Repentance”... was published in the magazine “North” (N10, 1988).” No, I think witnesses and historians still have to work hard.

Much has already been written about Stalin’s victims and executioners. I note that a continuation of the novel “Children of the Arbat” by A. Rybakov, “The Thirty-Fifth and Other Years,” has been published, in which many pages are devoted to the secret springs of the preparation and conduct of the trials of the 30s against the former leaders of the Bolshevik Party.

Thinking about Stalin’s time, your thoughts involuntarily turn to the revolution. And today it is seen in many ways differently. “We are told that the Russian revolution did not bring anything, that we have great poverty. Absolutely right. But... We have a perspective, we see a way out, we have the will, the desire, we see the path before us...” - this is how N. Bukharin wrote. Now we are wondering: what did this will do to the country, where did this path lead and where is the way out. In search of an answer, we begin to turn to the origins, to October.

It seems to me that A. Solzhenitsyn explores this topic more deeply than anyone else. Moreover, these issues are addressed in many of his books. But the main work of this writer about the origins and beginning of our revolution is the multi-volume “Red Wheel”. We have already printed parts of it - “August the fourteenth”, “October the sixteenth”. The four-volume “March the Seventeenth” is also being published. Alexander Isaevich continues to work hard on the epic.

Solzhenitsyn persistently does not recognize not only the October, but also the February revolution, considering the overthrow of the monarchy a tragedy of the Russian people. He argues that the morality of the revolution and revolutionaries is inhumane and inhumane; the leaders of revolutionary parties, including Lenin, are unprincipled and think, first of all, about personal power. It is impossible to agree with him, but it is also impossible not to listen, especially since the writer uses a huge number of facts and historical evidence. I would like to note that this outstanding writer has already agreed to return to his homeland.

There are similar discussions about the revolution in the memoirs of the writer Oleg Volkov, “Plunge into Darkness.” The author, an intellectual and a patriot in the best sense of the word, spent 28 years in prison and exile. He writes: “In the more than two years that my father lived after the revolution, it was already clearly and irrevocably determined: the harshly tamed peasant and the somewhat softer bridled worker had to identify themselves with the authorities. But it was no longer possible to talk about this, to expose imposture and deception, to explain that the iron lattice of the new order leads to enslavement and the formation of an oligarchy. Yes, and it’s useless...”

Is this the way to evaluate the revolution?! It's hard to say; only time will make a final verdict. Personally, I do not consider this point of view correct, but it is also difficult to refute it: you will not forget either about Stalinism or about the deep crisis of today. It is also clear that studying the revolution and civil war based on the films “Lenin in October”, “Chapaev” or based on V. Mayakovsky’s poems “Vladimir Ilyich Lenin” And “Good” is no longer possible. The more we learn about this era, the more independently we will come to some conclusions. A lot of interesting things about this time can be gleaned from Shatrov’s plays, B. Pasternak’s novel “Doctor Zhivago”, V. Grossman’s story “Everything Flows” and others.

If there are sharp differences in the assessment of the revolution, then everyone condemns Stalin’s collectivization. And how can it be justified if it led to the ruin of the country, the death of millions of hardworking owners, and a terrible famine! And again I would like to quote Oleg Volkov about the time close to the “great turning point”:

“Then they were just organizing the mass transportation of robbed men into the abyss of the desert expanses of the North. For the time being, they snatched it selectively: they would impose an “individual” unpaid tax, wait a little, and then declare him a saboteur. And then there’s lafa: confiscate the property and throw it in prison!...”

Vasily Belov tells us about the village before the collective farm in the novel “Eves”. The continuation is “The Year of the Great Turnaround, Chronicle of 9 Months,” which describes the beginning of collectivization. One of the true works about the tragedy of the peasantry during the period of collectivization is the novel - the chronicle of Boris Mozhaev “Men and Women”. The writer, relying on documents, shows how that stratum in the village is formed and takes power, which prospers from the ruin and misfortune of fellow villagers and is ready to be fierce in order to please the authorities. The author shows that the culprits of the “excesses” and “dizziness from success” are those who ruled the country.

The topic of war seems to have been thoroughly studied and described in literature. But suddenly one of our most honest writers, Viktor Astafiev, himself a participant in the war, writes: “... as a soldier, I have nothing to do with what is written about the war. I was in a completely different war... Half-truths tormented us...” Yes, it is difficult to wean ourselves from the usual images of noble Soviet soldiers and despicable enemies that have been emerging for decades from war books and films. We learn from the newspapers that among the German pilots there were many who shot down 100 and even 300 Soviet aircraft. And our heroes Kozhedub and Pokryshkin are only a few dozen. Of course! It turns out that sometimes Soviet cadets flew for only 18 hours - and then went into battle! And the planes, especially during the war, were unimportant. Konstantin Simonov in “The Living and the Dead” perfectly described how pilots died because our “hawks” were “plywood”. We learn a lot of truth about the war from V. Grossman’s novel “Life and Fate”, from the conversations of Solzhenitsyn’s heroes - prisoners, former front-line soldiers, in the novel “In the First Circle”, in other works of our writers.

In the books of modern authors, there is an excellent theme of protecting and preserving our nature. Sergei Zalygin believes that in the face of the catastrophe and tragedy that is approaching us, today there is no more important and significant task than ecology. One could name the works of Astafiev, Belov, Rasputin (including his latest - about Siberia and Baikal), Aitmatov and many others.

The topic of nature conservation is also closely related to moral problems and the search for answers to “eternal” questions. For example, in Chingiz Aitmatov’s novel “The Scaffold”, both themes - the death of nature and immorality - complement each other. This writer also raises themes of universal human values ​​in his new novel “Our Lady of the Snows.”

From moral problems writers are very concerned about the moral savagery of some of our youth. This is noticeable even to foreigners. One of the foreign journalists writes: “Western people... sometimes know about some historical events in the Soviet Union there are more than Russian youth. Such historical deafness... led to the development of a generation of young people who know neither villains nor heroes and worship only the stars of Western rock music.” Andrei Voznesensky’s poem “The Ditch” is permeated with indignation and pain, in which the author pilloried grave robbers, scumbags who, for the sake of profit, do what the poet writes in the afterword, that they dig “in skeletons, next to a living road, to crumble the skull and tearing out crowns with pliers in the headlights.” “What must a person reach, how corrupted must consciousness be?!” - the reader exclaims along with the author.

It is difficult to list all the topics that were discussed in best works recent years. All this indicates that “our literature is now keeping pace with perestroika and is justifying its purpose.”