Russian literature of the 21st century characteristics. Modern trends in literature - literary theory

To become a literate person, you only need to read a few books. But to find these books, you need to read hundreds of others.
Recently I participated in the international scientific and practical seminar “Russian literature in the 21st century: guidelines and orientations.” The meetings were held at the Russian National Library and within the framework of the St. Petersburg International Book Salon. Famous literary critics and experts on modern Russian literature made presentations.
“Bad time: everyone writes, no one reads,” reads the entry on an ancient papyrus.
I noticed that in the program of speeches the name of the seminar sounded different: “Russian literature of the 21st century.” It seemed to me that the original title is broader in meaning, since it involves consideration of Russian Literature in the context of the global literary process.
Judge for yourself how well the stated topic was covered.

Marina Petrovna ABASHEVA, Doctor of Philology, Professor of Perm State Pedagogical University (Perm), member of the Booker Committee jury – 2010,

made a presentation on “The Literary Prize as Navigation in the Modern Literary Space.” Is navigation possible, such as finding the right course to read or to create new texts? The answer is NO!
Literary prizes today are losing their authority. In the 1990s, prizes were hoped for as an instrument of ideological and aesthetic decentralization. Now the lack of common navigational landmarks causes distrust in the award.
The award is not so much a tool for navigation as a measuring instrument for it.
Consensus, especially at the last stage of awarding the prize, is achieved in a purely arithmetic way, and quite often the favorite figure turns out to be a compromise figure.
The critic Levinson proposed giving the NOS award not to the best book, but to the one that is the most average. “NOS” can be deciphered as “current domestic literature”!
The course of current Russian literature is a course towards mass appeal, towards history (“story”), towards adventure, towards carnival...
The prose of recent years is characterized by “journalism,” which is expressed primarily in style.
The realist trend pushes aside the postmodernist one.
The success of the book in the online environment is ensured by its similarity to a computer game.
Focus on examples of Western literature is a quite noticeable trend now - a trend towards universalism, cosmopolitanism.

Nikita Lvovich ELISEEV, literary critic from St. Petersburg,

delivered the message “The National Bestseller Literary Award is an indicator of the literary process.” He expressed the opinion that the problem of literature is primarily the problem of the loss of readers. In late Soviet times, the reader was the intelligentsia, some of whom have now gone either “up” to become bankers or librarians.
A literary prize cannot be a navigator, but it can be an indicator—an exact measure of what our literature is. Critics are a clan, and willy-nilly, there is a separation from readers.
The “national bestseller” award of 10 thousand dollars is carefully divided: 7 thousand dollars goes to the winner, and 3 thousand dollars goes to the one who nominated this candidate. This is a kind of “rollback”.

“A Russian bestseller is a book that is not bought, but stolen,” added one of the participants.

Tatiana Mikhailovna KOLYADICH Doctor of Philology, Professor MPGU (Moscow)

made a presentation “Modern prose: myth or reality.” She believes that there has been a breakdown of the literary paradigm, starting with ideology and ending with the internal structure of the text. Literary scholars have their own circle of authors, which we cherish and cherish, but the reader chooses something completely different. Interest in certain authors remains precisely because their works raise universal human problems.
Postmodernism was a game, a toy. Nowadays commercial projects influence our lives. The book has become a product today. There is even such a term as “business novel”. Literature is created for a certain format, the book is a product, receiving direct or indirect PR support. Many books are read only because they are included in a certain series.
The reader is interested in ordinary people, placed by fate in complex frameworks.
A dynamic computer text will remain if it is saturated with dialogues, real construction, and detective intrigue. But will there be depth, philosophy, our two traditional questions “who is to blame?” and “what should I do?”
Modern literature needs a balance of reasoning and storytelling.
Large texts are not in demand today. The reader is attracted to family sagas and books with a mystical component.
The era of high fashion has ended, the time has come for literature for everyday wear.
“I don’t see opportunities and ways to educate today’s reader. But I believe that such a reader will come when we move away from commercialization.”
80% of the Moscow House of Books belongs to one person who imposes his position.

One of the participants expressed the opinion that literature has now entered a period of freedom, and this is the best for both authors and readers. We must stop saying that books should educate. It’s one thing to read books, another thing to sell them. Leading publishing houses “AST” and “Eksmo” do not promote authors who publish 3 thousand copies. Standard – 15 thousand copies.

Maria Aleksandrovna CHERNYAK – Doctor of Philology, Professor of the Russian State Pedagogical University named after. A.I. Herzen (St. Petersburg)

cited interesting data from the survey “What is modern literature?”
“Modern literature is a reflection of a person’s attempts to get away from loneliness and a return to it.” “Modern literature is the cornerstone of unprofessionalism with precocity and thirst for profit.” “This is the past that is described now, so often it is not interesting to me; This is someone else’s experience, I need my own.” “Modern literature divides more than it educates; a one-time read.” “It’s a big dump, but sometimes you can find brilliant flowers of life there.” “Only a complete fool continues to understand something in modern literature, and a specialist has long ago lost an accurate, uniform understanding of it.” “Modern literature is the author’s attempt to describe our chaotic reality, spice it up with non-trivial heroes and thoroughbred cockroaches, and season it all with eternal problems.”

Olga Petrovna LEBEDUSHKINA, Ph.D., associate professor, literary critic (Balashov) made a presentation “Anthology and series: methods of navigation, search and selection.”

Roman Emilievich ARBITMAN (Lev Gursky), a writer from Saratov, spoke about the role of extra-literary circumstances in promoting a book to the reader.

Sergei Fedorovich DMITRENKO - editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Literature" of the publishing house "First of September", Ph.D., literary critic from Moscow - made a report "Modern reading of a modern Russian literature teacher (from the experience of studying and management)."

Nadezhda Evgenievna BELYAEVA, senior teacher of the Department of Library Science and Bibliography at OGIK (Oryol), spoke about fiction on the Internet, how and what young people read.

NOVIKOVA Liza Vladimirovna (literary critic from Moscow)

stated that the choice of books is not determined by literary awards. Reader interest remains influenced by politics.
The task of the critic is to understand that we really have our time, in which there are huge political and social problems. We must continue to write about what seems real.
The critic has to deal with such a recently developed phenomenon as Internet criticism. But at the same time, there should still be professional criticism.

Evgenia VEZHLYAN (Evgenia Isaakovna Vorobyova), Ph.D., Associate Professor at Moscow State Pedagogical Institute, literary critic, poet from Moscow,

in her report she tried to prove that prose and poetry are different spaces. Literature is associated primarily with poetry. Poetry is what poets write. And prose is what people who are recognized as prose writers write.
Does our literature have a mission? – Evgenia Vezhlyan rightly asks.

Dmitry Petrovich BAK (“the man from TV”), Zhanna Georgievna Galieva and Tatyana Vladimirovna Solovyova - from the Center for Research of Contemporary Russian Literature at the Russian State University for the Humanities (Moscow) spoke about their projects.
Zhanna Georgievna Galieva said that the Russian State University for the Humanities already has a real literary award, the Student Booker, there is a sponsor, its own structure, projects with the support of the Russian Booker Foundation, and since 2004 this project has been held every year.

Tatyana Vladimirovna Solovyova spoke about the “Reading Trajectory” project, an event that is closest to the talk show genre. At the heart of every event is a problem. The goal is not just to promote a book, but to discuss a current problem or identify a trend.

Dmitry Petrovich BAK said: “we don’t know what should be in modern literature, we don’t know any ready-made recipes on how to convey it to students; but we are convinced that before we build theories and give recipes, we must pass the material...
In general, the ability to conduct a conversation at some level, and not slide into the tone that sometimes happens in conversations about the latest literature, when there are simply some judgments based on nothing, what is good, what is bad, what should be, what should not They must be hanging in the air without any support...
The main thing is to get rid of the positivist belief that there are two heads, one lacks something, and the other has an excess...
And most importantly – a minimum of detached arrogance! Because I am convinced that it is unknown who teaches whom when we talk about contemporary literature...”

I decided to ask the famous expert what are the main trends in the development of Russian literature in the twenty-first century?
Dmitry Bak refused to answer my question, saying “that this has nothing to do with the report.” The refusal seemed strange to me, since the topic of the conference was dedicated to this. I tried to point out the significant differences in the titles of the seminar: “Russian literature in the 21st century” and Russian literature of the 21st century.” Dmitry BAK did not see the differences, but admitted that it was a typo.

Since the leading expert on new Russian literature, Dmitry Petrovich BAK, refused to answer my question, I decided to go to the St. Petersburg International Book Fair to learn first-hand from readers, publishers and sellers how they see Russian literature in the 21st century.

The opinions of the people I interviewed fell into three main groups. Some see the future of Russian literature in a philosophical understanding of reality, others argue that entertainment will remain the dominant trend, while others believe that literature will develop in all directions and become multicultural.

In my opinion, Russian literature of the 21st century will be a literature of meaning, a search for answers to the eternal questions of existence. But perhaps it takes a shock for people to understand the importance of thinking about the meaning of life and the purpose of human existence.

The development of Russian literature in the 21st century will be influenced by three main factors:
THE FIRST FACTOR IS ECONOMIC.
Approximately 60 thousand books are published in Russia annually. The cost of paper publications is rising, and the difficulties of distribution and sales are increasing. Paper books cannot compete with free electronic copies available to everyone on the Internet.
There are 145 thousand libraries in the country. The Russian National Library in St. Petersburg has almost 40 million items. Annual replenishment of libraries with even a minimal number of printed publications costs the treasury incomparably more than updating with electronic versions. The Internet also allows you to significantly increase the number of titles of updated publications. But this is hampered by copyright legislation, which will certainly be overcome or changed.
Electronic books will soon completely replace mass paper publications. The book business is already gradually moving into the sphere of copyright trading. Therefore, the initiators of the extension of copyright are the media tycoons who own huge packages of copyright.
The Internet is reducing the circulation of printed publications, and therefore the income of writers. It is unlikely that a professional writer will agree to publish for free. The profession of “writer” will gradually disappear. The author's success will be determined not by circulation, but by the strength of his ideas.

SECOND FACTOR – TECHNOLOGICAL
The further development of the Internet, receiving, transmitting, copying and reading devices will allow us to have access to huge sources of information. In the near future, literature will exist on electronic media, and the reader will be able to read the texts anytime, anywhere.
Audiobooks are replacing printed texts. Philologists have already abandoned the division between written and oral. Instead of “oral” they say “sounding” word, “sounding speech”, etc. A sounding word is a special phenomenon. It has special properties and enormous capabilities compared to what is written.
Text is gradually replacing video. Everyone knows that reading from a screen is difficult - your eyes get tired. The monitor screen is designed more for video than for reading large texts.
While trust in the image still remains, trust in the printed word is steadily declining.
Video has undoubted advantages over text. Firstly, it is much more pleasant and easier to watch than to read the text. Secondly, the video allows you to more voluminously express not only your thoughts, but also your feelings through images and music. And if the video also uses special effects, then this makes the message even more impressive.
The book of the future will be a complex creation containing text, photographs, video, audio recording and computer special effects.

THIRD FACTOR – IDEOLOGICAL
The globalization of the world, on the one hand, and consumer ideology, on the other hand, have a significant impact on the appearance of the consumer of modern literature. The main characteristic of a person today is to be a consumer. Therefore, the book becomes more and more a commodity and less and less a source of transformation.
To be accepted in the world, Russian literature must adapt to global trends and at the same time be on the level of the works of Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Anton Chekhov. The great Russian culture is associated with Russian literature.
But some kind of social cataclysm must probably occur for people to again feel the need for literature that touches on the eternal questions of existence.

I believe that in modern literature we can roughly distinguish TWO TRENDS: literature that suggests not to think (“take your brains on vacation”), and literature that invites you to think (provides food for the soul and mind). The first is clearly focused on entertainment, relaxation, and delight for the reader (consumer). This literature is a business, or part of a business! The main goal of representatives of this literature is to make money! And they are not shy to admit it.

THE SECOND TREND is literature of spiritual content (not to be confused with religious literature), which invites us to think about what is happening around us and in ourselves. This literature, if not completely disinterested, is, in any case, not a business, since its goal is not to make money, but to introduce the reader to the highest ideals of human culture and patterns of human life.

A huge number of printed books are now valuable only as waste paper. And how much effort was spent on their writing, publication, distribution!..
I recently found a brochure by the Znanie society (No. 2, 1979) near the metro station, “Chronicle of our era.” In the chapter “The Soviet way of life and the future of our literature: the experience of forecasting,” Doctor of Philology Yu.A. Andreev writes: “Literature must carefully and carefully, from the standpoint of Marxism, armed with Leninist partisanship, penetrate into the relationships of individual and social existence... Deepening social analysis just like psychologism and historicism, will accompany the development of socialist literature, truthful in its very essence.”

In 1974 in Paris, the famous French theorist R. Alberas published the book “Literature - the horizon of 2000”. He argued that by the beginning of the new millennium, internal monologue would become the dominant technique, the categories of time and space would be completely transformed, there would be no beginning, no end, no cause or effect; the character of the hero will blur and disappear, there will be no personality, the time will come for anonymous characters, masked characters without individual characteristics. The rejection of logic and grammar will become absolute and dominant. “The future belongs to strange books”!

Today, the literary process has turned into a business, not much different from other types of business, where the main violin is played by the consumer, that is, the reader.
Nowadays writers are “producers of literature.” Literary awards have become part of the book business to promote a particular author.
It is no longer a secret to anyone who is given literary prizes and why (read the work of the French researcher Pierre Bourdieu “The Field of Literature”). To receive a literary prize you need to: a\ issue an annual literary product, no matter what size or quality, but always annually, and preferably more than one; b\ you need to have a high mode of intra-group participation (in other words, participate in literary parties and be “in the crowd”); c\ demonstrate loyalty to certain topics and political conditions.

In my opinion, what is important is not to receive a prize, but to remain in the history of literature, or, even better, in the human hearts of as many people as possible.
As James Ballard rightly said: “Any fool can write a novel, but only a genius can sell it!”

For some, a book is a commodity, but for me it is a confession. Confession is not traded!
Publishers are not interested in me because it is impossible to make money from me. I post all my works on the Internet for free downloading.
I am a principled opponent of the institution of inheritance, including the inheritance of copyright. I was offered to buy the copyright to my novel in exchange for its publication. I refused.
I share the position of Leo Tolstoy: everyone should live from what they themselves have personally earned!
“Such a mania is writing. Write for money, said Leo Tolstoy. “It’s like eating when you don’t want to, or like prostitution when you don’t want to indulge in debauchery.”

Professional writers and professional critics do not want to notice New Russian Literature, since one of its principles is the unselfishness of creative motives. Few people are capable of creating unselfishly.

The title “writer” has become devalued. Nowadays, football players, artists, politicians have become writers... No one perceives a writer as the people's conscience anymore. The writer today is a pathetic buffoon, trying by any means to attract the attention of readers, ready for any PR, any shocking act, making a performance out of his own exhibitionism.
If Yulia Vysotskaya is a writer, and Ksyusha Sobchak is a writer... then in that case I am a non-writer!
A writer is not a profession, but a calling and ministry. Perhaps even debt! A real writer is a Prophet, because God judges what is happening with his conscience.

Recently a curious incident happened to me. Every year I fill out forms to obtain the necessary permission. This year I filled it out as always, but a young clerk demanded that I indicate the legal address of the employer, because, in her words, “all writers must work somewhere, for example, in a printing house.”

Many people call me a writer, some consider me a poet. But as Anna Akhmatova said, “I don’t understand these big words: poet, billiards...”.
Calling yourself a poet and being a poet are not the same thing. Yes, and this is immodest...
What matters is not who calls themselves what, but what they will call us in the future.

A poet is not someone who writes poetry. This is someone who can capture and poetically express moods and feelings in rhymed verse (sometimes in free verse).
Personally, I write both prose and poetry in the same context, without distinguishing them, and I do not call myself a poet or prose writer.

When there is no recognition, the poet, alas, is free; when he is famous, he is a slave to the empty crowd. He is only useful to her when he creates for money, without love. Only without rewards, without any recognition, far from the sticky bustle of life, does he create for himself, as if in repentance. He is a slave of Gifts, not of human rumor!
- The poems will be forgotten, the manuscript will burn.
- Perhaps they will remember you with kind words?
“We don’t need a monolith not for memory, but for the hearts with which we will die!”

I share the point of view of the French writer Pierre Michon that the addressee of our creativity is GOD!
And I agree with Boris Pasternak: “The goal of creativity is dedication!”

“If you are not sure that your works will be read in a hundred years, you should not stain the paper. You can publish volumes, but only the lines will remain in hearing. So it's only fair that real talent is judged after death. It is impossible to buy posthumous fame. Only Eternity gives a true assessment. The writer’s talent lies in the ability to discern the natural in the random, to highlight the unchangeable in the vain, in order to transform the temporary into the eternal.”

“A real writer is not a writer; it only reflects life, because it is impossible to compose the truth, you can only reflect it. Truth is higher than fiction! And above the truth is the poetry of truth! I have seen the Secret, and I want others to see it. My task is not to teach the reader, but to encourage him to solve the Mystery together. And for me, happiness is if the reader discovers more meanings in the text than I discovered. I want to help a person think, I create space for reflection without imposing my opinion, since everyone must understand themselves and the mystery of the universe.”

Writer Olga Slavnikova is right when she says that the book no longer evokes sympathy, but only interest in books written based on real events remains.
Both of my novels are based on real events, and the second one, “The Wanderer” (mystery), is called a “true novel.”

By publishing my novel, I did not have the goal of making money or becoming famous. I wrote in order to help with my experience of self-rescue those who found themselves in a similar difficult situation.
The goal of my creativity is not to remake others, but to create myself!
The main result of a life lived is not the number of books written, but the state of the soul on the verge of death.

We live in a time of loss of literary centrism. Literature in modern society is needed primarily by the writers themselves. There is a feeling of exhaustion of the word, its devaluation. A lot is written, but the transition from quantity to quality does not occur.

In modern life, the reader needs relaxation from a book. Everyone has already forgotten that reading a book is a labor of soul and mind. Nobody wants to spend hard-earned money to work more. People want entertainment! Bread and circuses! And it’s hard to blame them for this. It has always been this way.

I have nothing against entertaining literature - it is also needed. But the whole question is, what should there be more of: literature for relaxation or literature for reflection?

There has never been real philosophy in Russia, and all ideas were proposed by writers. At school we are recommended to read exactly those books that are filled with spiritual experience and teach life. These are “Woe from Wit”, “Dead Souls”, “Crime and Punishment”, “War and Peace”...

Today literature has ceased to be revelation. The writer is no longer a teacher of life, and literature is not the quintessence of wisdom - at best, “reading” that can entertain while traveling on public transport.
Critical realism and socialist realism are being replaced by metaphysical realism, mystical realism, transrealism, superrealism, post-postmodern realism, in which all views, even the craziest, have the right to be called reality.

Literature is a dynamic energetic process, an open dynamic system. In an attempt to provide a universal explanation of the world, literature is increasingly boldly invading areas that do not exist as a reality for science.
No philosopher is capable of what literature is intended to do - simply talk about the complex. Literature can do what no science can do - hit the hearts of people with the Truth! This is both the duty of literature and its purpose - to comprehend the Truth with the heart!

Today, literature is expected to produce new ideas and a new vision, and not to pour from empty to empty. The main problem, as always, is the problem of the ideal in modern life. It seems that modern people have no ideal at all.

The literature of destruction (postmodernism) is being replaced today by the new Russian literature of creation and constructivism!
For me, literature is a living word that can express the innermost and transform a person.
Literature, if it is real, can change people’s consciousness, and therefore life itself!
The task of literature is to form new ideals, remembering the Eternal truths, to prove their necessity and possibility!
The art of words - which is literature - consists in the ability to penetrate the heart, and, having conquered it, force the mind to encourage people to do good without looking back, to evoke feelings that, better than any proof, will convince of the need to love no matter what.
Literature is a cry, a call to man, a call to the best in man!”
(from the Declaration of New Russian Literature - in my true-life novel “The Wanderer” (mystery)

Those wishing to listen to the entire discussion can download the audio file in dvf format (three hours) using the download link: http://files.mail.ru/QKGBEN
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P.S. Read my other articles on this issue: “Book of the XXI century”, “Recipe for good literature”, “How much does criticism cost”, “What kills literature”, “St. Petersburg fundamentalists from literature”, “Mysteries of the St. Petersburg text”, “To whom and for what give literary prizes”, “Internet and Literature”.

WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL RUSSIAN LITERATURE BE IN THE XXI CENTURY?

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The events that occurred in the last decades of the last century affected all spheres of life, including culture. Significant changes were also observed in fiction. With the adoption of the new Constitution, a turning point occurred in the country, which could not but affect the way of thinking and the worldview of citizens. New value guidelines have emerged. Writers, in turn, reflected this in their work.

The topic of today's story is modern Russian literature. What trends have been observed in prose in recent years? What features are inherent in the literature of the 21st century?

Russian language and modern literature

The literary language has been processed and enriched by great masters of words. It should be considered one of the highest achievements of national speech culture. At the same time, it is impossible to separate the literary language from the folk language. The first person to understand this was Pushkin. The great Russian writer and poet showed how to use speech material created by the people. Today, in prose, authors often reflect the folk language, which, however, cannot be called literary.

Time frame

When using a term such as “modern Russian literature,” we mean prose and poetry created in the early nineties of the last century and in the 21st century. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, dramatic changes occurred in the country, as a result of which literature, the role of the writer, and the type of reader became different. In the 1990s, works by such authors as Pilnyak, Pasternak, Zamyatin finally became available to ordinary readers. The novels and stories of these writers have, of course, been read before, but only by advanced book lovers.

Liberation from prohibitions

In the 1970s, a Soviet person could not calmly walk into a bookstore and buy the novel Doctor Zhivago. This book, like many others, was banned for a long time. In those distant years, it was fashionable for representatives of the intelligentsia, even if not out loud, to scold the authorities, criticize the “correct” writers approved by it and quote “forbidden” ones. The prose of disgraced authors was secretly reprinted and distributed. Those who were involved in this difficult matter could lose their freedom at any time. But banned literature continued to be reprinted, distributed and read.

Years have passed. The power has changed. Such a concept as censorship simply ceased to exist for some time. But, oddly enough, people did not line up in long lines for Pasternak and Zamyatin. Why did this happen? In the early 1990s, people lined up at grocery stores. Culture and art were in decline. Over time, the situation improved somewhat, but the reader was no longer the same.

Many of today's critics speak very unflatteringly about prose of the 21st century. What the problem of modern Russian literature is will be discussed below. First, it is worth talking about the main trends in the development of prose in recent years.

The Other Side of Fear

During times of stagnation, people were afraid to say an extra word. This phobia turned into permissiveness in the early nineties of the last century. Modern Russian literature of the initial period is completely devoid of an instructive function. If, according to a survey conducted in 1985, the most read authors were George Orwell and Nina Berberova, 10 years later the books “Filthy Cop” and “Profession - Killer” became popular.

In modern Russian literature at the initial stage of its development, phenomena such as total violence and sexual pathologies prevailed. Fortunately, during this period, as already mentioned, authors from the 1960s and 1970s became available. Readers also had the opportunity to get acquainted with foreign literature: from Vladimir Nabokov to Joseph Brodsky. The work of previously banned authors has had a positive impact on Russian modern fiction.

Postmodernism

This movement in literature can be characterized as a peculiar combination of ideological attitudes and unexpected aesthetic principles. Postmodernism developed in Europe in the 1960s. In our country, it took shape as a separate literary movement much later. There is no single picture of the world in the works of postmodernists, but there is a variety of versions of reality. The list of modern Russian literature in this direction includes, first of all, the works of Viktor Pelevin. In the books of this writer, there are several versions of reality, and they are by no means mutually exclusive.

Realism

Realist writers, unlike modernists, believe that there is meaning in the world, but it must be found. V. Astafiev, A. Kim, F. Iskander are representatives of this literary movement. We can say that in recent years the so-called village prose has regained popularity. Thus, one often encounters depictions of provincial life in the books of Alexei Varlamov. The Orthodox faith is, perhaps, the main one in the prose of this writer.

A prose writer can have two tasks: moralizing and entertaining. There is an opinion that third-rate literature entertains and distracts from everyday life. Real literature makes the reader think. Nevertheless, among the topics of modern Russian literature, crime occupies not the last place. The works of Marinina, Neznansky, Abdullaev, perhaps, do not inspire deep reflection, but they gravitate towards the realistic tradition. The books of these authors are often called “pulp fiction.” But it is difficult to deny the fact that both Marinina and Neznansky managed to occupy their niche in modern prose.

The books of Zakhar Prilepin, a writer and famous public figure, were created in the spirit of realism. Its heroes mainly live in the nineties of the last century. Prilepin's work evokes mixed reactions among critics. Some consider one of his most famous works, “Sankya,” to be a kind of manifesto for the younger generation. And Nobel laureate Günter Grass called Prilepin’s story “The Vein” very poetic. Opponents of the Russian writer’s work accuse him of neo-Stalinism, anti-Semitism and other sins.

Women's prose

Does this term have a right to exist? It is not found in the works of Soviet literary scholars, yet the role of this phenomenon in the history of literature is not denied by many modern critics. Women's prose is not just literature created by women. It appeared in the era of the birth of emancipation. Such prose reflects the world through the eyes of a woman. Books by M. Vishnevetskaya, G. Shcherbakova, and M. Paley belong to this direction.

Are the works of Booker Prize winner Lyudmila Ulitskaya women's prose? Maybe only individual works. For example, stories from the collection "Girls". Ulitskaya’s heroes are equally men and women. In the novel “The Kukotsky Case,” for which the writer was awarded a prestigious literary award, the world is shown through the eyes of a man, a professor of medicine.

Not many modern Russian works of literature are actively translated into foreign languages today. Such books include novels and stories by Lyudmila Ulitskaya and Victor Pelevin. Why are there so few Russian-language writers today who are interesting in the West?

Lack of interesting characters

According to publicist and literary critic Dmitry Bykov, modern Russian prose uses outdated narrative techniques. Over the past 20 years, not a single living, interesting character has appeared whose name would become a household name.

In addition, unlike foreign authors who are trying to find a compromise between seriousness and mass appeal, Russian writers seem to be divided into two camps. The creators of the above-mentioned “pulp fiction” belong to the first group. The second includes representatives of intellectual prose. A lot of arthouse literature is being created that even the most sophisticated reader cannot understand, and not because it is extremely complex, but because it has no connection with modern reality.

Publishing business

Today in Russia, according to many critics, there are talented writers. But there aren't enough good publishers. Books by “promoted” authors regularly appear on the shelves of bookstores. Out of thousands of works of low-quality literature, not every publisher is ready to look for one that is worth attention.

Most of the books of the writers mentioned above reflect the events not of the beginning of the 21st century, but of the Soviet era. In Russian prose, according to one famous literary critic, nothing new has appeared over the past twenty years, since writers have nothing to talk about. In conditions of family disintegration, it is impossible to create a family saga. In a society in which priority is given to material issues, an instructive novel will not arouse interest.

One may not agree with such statements, but there really are no modern heroes in modern literature. Writers tend to turn to the past. Perhaps the situation in the literary world will soon change, authors will appear who are capable of creating books that will not lose popularity in a hundred or two hundred years.

From the standpoint 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 career 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 Departures”,

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 variety of genres of the laureates, in different years were 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 traditionality of 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 practice of “special prizes” accompanying the “Big Book”, which 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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Lecture

End of the 20th century was marked in Russian literature by a phenomenon that had never happened before. Along with modern works, literature from Russian abroad and “returned” (“detained”) literature began to be intensively published. As a result, the reader was faced with a choice: read complex, not always understandable postmodern literature or find out how the events of the 20th century were viewed from a different angle. Society was very politicized; many wanted to understand why the Soviet Union collapsed so quickly, so they looked for the answer in alternative sources.

But time has passed. The best examples of “returned” and Russian literature from abroad were published. And everything returned to normal. The reader noticed new authors, a new hero, and a new style of storytelling. Not everyone likes modern literature, but it has always been so, is and will be. As Zhukovsky said: “Posterity distributes crowns and shame.” And what irritates us now will quite possibly become a classic after a certain time. The teacher needs not only to know modern literature, but also to skillfully present it to his students. At the same time, select the best, typical.

By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the debate about postmodernism had ended. The “end of literature,” as some critics predicted, has not arrived. Postmodernism has come into its own because it is not only literature, but also philosophy and the surrounding reality. Society has entered a post-industrial stage of development, where the consumer prevails over the creator. Modern technologies help people communicate quickly and wirelessly. The Internet has expanded horizons. The speed of receiving information and responding to it has increased. In such conditions, a person can no longer and does not want to quietly wander through the alleys of the park, admire sunsets and sunrises, and understand emotional experiences. A person is in a hurry to live, to take as much as possible from this life, to enjoy the here and now. Man has learned about virtual space; he is more interested in machines than in people. Young people are infected with Tigilism and strive not for creation, but for destruction, in order to build something new in the place of what was destroyed, but one that would definitely not be similar to where their fathers and grandfathers lived. The world has become tougher. Here we must not sigh, but act. And literature responds to the spirit of the times. It does not reflect reality, but constructs it. She populates the artistic space not only with people, but also with simulacra (i.e., likeness). Writers easily move their characters through time, juxtaposing and intertwining time layers. In a cruel world, the hero’s life is bad, and he either turns into a “little man,” a victim of circumstances, or into a superman who can neither love, nor be friends, nor sympathize with anyone.

The older generation, brought up on “correct” Soviet literature, is indignant, slams such books, turns off the TV, writes revealing articles in newspapers, calling to return to the times of Leo Tolstoy and delve into the human soul. The younger generation, who grew up in very difficult and contradictory times, reads these books, watches films, argues, and exchanges opinions on the Internet. There was a gap between “fathers” and “children”. And everyone believes that the truth is on their side. As a result, teachers complain that children do not read, and students look at literature as a subject not required for study. And many literature teachers realize that if students are allowed to choose subjects in high school, many of them will lose their jobs. Is it necessary to study the psychological roots of this phenomenon? Is it necessary to compare eras? After all, everything repeats itself. Or maybe just look carefully and objectively at the processes taking place in modern literature? After all, no matter how much one part of the readers is indignant, there will always be those who like modern literature with all its experiments. No matter how much we scream: “Horror!” - writers will create their own artistic world and raise exciting problems in their favorite forms.

Let’s better understand modern literature of the 21st century.

So, literature of the beginning of the 21st century lives according to the law of the “turn of the century,” and this is always associated with the “fatigue” of previous methods, the emergence of new trends and directions, the search for new genres, new heroes, and experiments in language. Remember the turn of the 18th-19th centuries, the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries. Everywhere there was a struggle between old and new. In the first case, classicism was replaced by sentimentalism and romanticism. In the second case, socialist realism was replaced by postmodernism. At the turn of the century, writers always have a feeling of a tragic contradiction of reality. Readers cannot unambiguously accept new works; they talk about “the end of literature”, about “a dead end”, about “pure experiments”. Karamzin was reproached for this for his “Poor Liza.” And with this story he paved a new path in literature. Futurists and Imagists were blamed for this. And they were looking for a new language. And there is nothing to say about postmodernism. He is blamed for the death of literature.

V. Rozanov, a philosopher of the early twentieth century, spoke about the writers of his time: “You have no soul, gentlemen: and literature does not come out.” And now we are enthusiastically studying the literature of the Silver Age. A.V. Sharov connects the modern literary process with the twenties of the twentieth century, believing that we are now genetically closest to this period, when many movements and trends literally stunned readers, when numerous associations were created, and endless debates took place. “We not only finish, complete what they started,” writes A. Sharov, “we not only finish their book: we tell them ourselves how, how it will end, - we are very similar to that generation in our sense of life.” Yes, we have now accepted the Silver Age, although sometimes we analyze the works of modernists according to the scheme of realism, missing or not seeing the characteristic features of the poetics of the Acmeists, Imagists, and Symbolists. It’s easier with the futurists, everything is on the surface there. But by the end of the twentieth century, we finally accepted the literature of the early twentieth century. With postmodernism it is more difficult.

Let's try to figure this out. At the end of the twentieth century, the literary era broke down, literary centrism in society was lost, and the type of writer changed dramatically. We are accustomed to the fact that Russian literature is an “encyclopedia of Russian life”, it is a “textbook of life”, it is a “psychological portrait” of a Russian person. But today literature turns out to have an educational, teaching mission. Previously, literature replaced human life. And now a person does not want to live according to the model of literary heroes. But Blok also wrote that “modern literature is interesting because it aesthetically reflects our time.” “Literature helps a person clarify the time of his existence,” said I. Brodsky. E. Popov in the story “The Soul of a Patriot, or Various Messages to Fefichkin” writes, addressing the modern writer: “Don’t waste your time, describes what is still there.”

In the 21st century, writers of four generations continue to create. V. Rasputin came to literature in the 60s. And in 2002 wrote the story “Izba”, for which he received the Solzhenitsyn Foundation Prize in 2004. the story “Ivan’s Daughter, Ivan’s Mother,” which poses the pressing problems of our time. A. Bitov, V. Makanin, L. Petrushevskaya, V. Tokareva, S. Sokolov came from the 70s. I. Brodsky wrote about them: “In moral terms, this generation was among the most bookish in Russian history.” They were characterized by underground and samizdat. They began to doubt not only “the new man, but also man in general.” It is this generation that begins to master postmodernism. And now they are the leading postmodernists of our literature.

During “perestroika” (80s), V. Pelevin, T. Tolstaya, L. Ulitskaya, V. Sorokin, A. Slapovsky, O. Slavnikova, M. Paley literally burst into literature. There was no censorship. The writer became free. He turned to previously forbidden topics: the horrors of prison, army hazing, the life of homeless people, prostitution, alcoholism, the struggle for physical survival. They continued the traditions of Gogol’s natural school with an interest in the little man,” in the “humiliated and insulted.” And today they are not afraid of “chernukha”, showing the people's world as a concentration of social horror, accepted as an everyday norm. Their prose conveys a sense of the unhappiness of modern life. They are interested in the world of the “bottom,” which they were previously ashamed to talk about, but which existed in the twentieth century and still exists now.

At the end of the twentieth century, the fourth generation of writers appeared. These are A. Utkin, A. Gelasimov, E. Sadur, B. Shiryanov, M. Shishkin and others. V. Erofeev wrote about them: “Young writers are the first generation of free people in the history of Russia, without state and internal censorship, singing random advertising songs under your breath.” They are called “next generation”. O. Slavnikova writes about them: “The righteousness of youth is based not on expertise, not on knowledge of what, for example, a thirty-five-year-old person does not know, but on freedom. The next writer rejects the aesthetics of refined individualism, whining and decay. He doesn’t like the role of a social outsider; he tries on the role of a youth leader.”

The main thing is that no matter what form the work is created in, it always reflects our reality, always speaks of the struggle between Good and Evil.

The literature of the 21st century tries to answer three questions:

1) Who is to blame?

2) What to do?

3) Who can live well in Rus'?

Representatives of neo-naturalistic literature (V. Rasputin “Ivan’s Daughter, Ivan’s Mother”, O. Ermakova “Afghan Stories”, A. Slapovsky “Idol”, “Brothers”, D. Bykov “Spelling”) argue that morally degraded society is to blame , for whom money has become the main value. To save the world, it is necessary to expose the ulcers of this society, to name the “pain points” of the era, taking on the role of a judge. But life in Rus' today is difficult for everyone. This is a rather pessimistic view of the world. The picture of the village is especially sad, the authors do not see any prospects, they are horrified at the thought that our roots are being torn away, we are losing stability, traditions, morality (N. Klyucharyova “Russia: Common Car”, “One Day in Paradise”, “Zakhar Prilepin “Sankya”, ________________

Representatives of non-religious literature (E. Chizhov’s “Lavra”) claim that man has lost God in his soul. So we need to look for the “road to the temple.” We are neophytes. And this path is very difficult and requires a lot of dedication. No one will help us on this path. You have to get there yourself. At the same time, the writers show the path not of a heroic personality, but of a “little man,” whose main task is “not to fall and to support his neighbor.” And in Rus' it is good to live for those who have come to the true faith, who have managed to purify the soul and return it to its origins, to that main Book in which the life of the Son of Man is described.

Suffragette (i.e. ladies', women's) literature claims that human weaknesses, selfishness, careerism, and the inability to love either oneself or others are to blame for everything. We need to get rid of these vices. Yes, there is a lot of injustice in life, it is full of mistakes and disappointments. But life is good only for those who know how to love, forgive, come to the rescue, forgetting about themselves. (V. Tokareva “Centering”, “Don’t Create”, E. Domolyat “The Way Home”, L. Ulitskaya “Sonechka”, “Medea and Her Children”, O. Slavnikova “Dragonfly Enlarged to the Size of a Dog”, D. Rubina "Blackthorn"._____

All of the above trends in modern literature can be united by common features. The prose (and we are now talking only about prose) of the named authors gravitates towards realism, although the features of both modernism and postmodernism are easily discernible in it. The writers show the modern world in a tangle of contradictions, depict the “little man” in everyday life, and clearly express their position. The language of these works is figurative and does not tend to violate the norms of literary language. There are no experiments here. But such works are easy to understand and easy to read and subsequent conversation.

For a teacher, the book “Small genre in modern Russian prose” can be a good help. Review experience: A manual for grades 10-11. general education Institutions / Author-comp. E.E. Katz, N.L. Karnaukh.- M.: Mnemosyne, 2006.-327p.

Here are collected short stories by authors of the 21st century. This will help the teacher immediately start working with the text. In addition, there is a Dictionary of concepts and terms, information about critics and literary scholars, and lists literary prizes and literary organizations of our time. Each story is preceded by a short biography of the author. And after the story, questions are expected for conversation based on the text.

Literature is a unique subject. It allows you to reach the child’s soul, develop in him not only an aesthetic sense, but also formulate moral values. Unfortunately, literature lessons often turn into simply “coaching” on the subject, memorizing the “correct” answers. Children are very sensitive to sincere and truthful words; they easily guess falsehood. And if the teacher does not allow the child to speak from the heart, freely (even if he is mistaken), he will withdraw and begin to say one thing in class, but do something completely different in life.

Literature is the main subject that shapes worldview, character, and moral principles. In a work of art, a child follows not so much the plot (this, of course, also exists), but rather seeks answers to questions that concern him. One day a tenth grader said: “Literature is not about Pechorin and Bazarov, it’s about me.” And modern literature, reflecting our everyday life, can also help a child understand himself.

But besides “easy”, accessible literature in the 21st century, avant-garde literature occupied the largest space. And above all, postmodernist. But it also needs to be studied. After all, it often happens that a person reads works of fiction only at school, and then does not pick up a book for the rest of his life. Moreover, the modern world helps him visually (through watching films on TV or in the cinema) satisfy his needs for information. Besides, reading is work, and not everyone likes this work.

The history of mankind is marked by a successive change of cultural eras. The 21st century is the era of postmodernity. Postmodernity is a global state of civilization at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries, the entire sum of cultural sentiments and philosophical trends associated with the feeling of the completion of an entire stage of cultural and historical development, the obsolescence of “modernity,” and the entry into a period of evolutionary crisis. The entire centuries-old experience is being rethought. Based on the concept of “postmodernity,” a derivative concept “postmodernism” arose to characterize certain trends in culture.

Postmodernism is a product of post-industrial society (i.e., consumer society).

In pre-industrial society, people's reality is the natural world.

In an industrial society, people's reality is the technical world.

In a post-industrial society, reality for people is a social world, without nature and things, it is a game between people.

In literary criticism, the term “postmodernism” appeared in 1975-76. in America.

Postmodernism is a symbol of post-industrial society; it signals the end of the ideological struggle and the advent of the era of conformism and aesthetic eclecticism.

Postmodernism is a new phrase of modernism.

“Postmodernism,” wrote V. Erofeev, “is a transition to a state when the reader becomes a free interpreter and when the writer does not slap his hands and say: “you read incorrectly, read differently” - this is a moment of liberation, and in this sense, postmodernism today – the achievement of freedom in literature.”

Postmodernism is an art that conveys a sense of crisis in human cognitive capabilities and the perception of the world as chaos, governed by incomprehensible laws or simply a game of blind chance and rampant senseless violence.

Postmodernism rests on three postulates:

1. There is no absolute truth, and everyone’s truth has the right to exist.

2. The mystery of life is unknowable.

3. Loss of faith in the highest meaning and cognitive capabilities of man.

Signs of postmodernism:

· uncertainty of the narrative;

· fragmentation (collage, montage, torn text);

· impersonality (erases personality);

· irony;

· hybridization (mutant change of genres);

Constructivism (constructs reality);

· art is an artistic machine, a generator of interpretations;

· (for example, the title should be such that the reader does not guess what the work will be about and begins to come up with his own versions of the content).

Postmodernism is called “omnivorous” because he absorbs everything that the culture eats.

Postmodernism uses the language of mass culture. The originality (innovation) of postmodern writers lies in the ability to find new ways of varying and combining the old.

Postmodernism creates works on the border between literature and philosophy, literature and literary criticism, literature and history.

The development of “minor” genres is underway: essays, memoirs, lives, chronicles, commentaries, treatises. Postmodernism uses travesty (travesty - dressing up) reduction of classical models, ironizing and parodying them.

There were 4 periods of postmodernism in Russian literature:

1) the end of the 60s-7s of the 20th century - the period of formation

(Abram Tertz “Walking with Pushkin”,

Andrey Bitov “Pushkin House”,

Venedikt Erofeev “Moscow – Petushki”,

Joseph Brodsky. Poetry.)

2) the end of the 70s-80s of the twentieth century. – development in the underground and samizdat

(Evgeny Popov “The Soul of a Patriot, or Various Messages to Ferfichkin”;

Sasha Sokolov “Palisandria”, Mikhail Berg “Ros and I”)

3) the end of the 80s-90s – the period of legalization

(Dmitry Gayakovsky “Endless Dead End”, Andrey Bitov “Catechumens”; Zinovy Zinik “Lord and the Huntsman”)

4) the first decade of the 21st century

(Mikhail Shishkin “The Capture of Ishmael”;

Victor Pelevin “Generation’P’”;

Sergei Lukyanenko “Night Watch”;

Valeria Narbikova “... and the journey”;

S. Babayan “No return. Nehero of our time").

Postmodernism has found its hero. This is a non-hero. The critic M. Remizov defines the typical features of a non-hero in modern literature: skeptic, anemic, he is afraid to do anything, gloomy, irritated by everything in the world, does not want to live, lazy, does not believe in anything.

A characteristic feature of postmodern literature is intertextuality (dialogue between old and new text).

For example: One day in the cold winter

I'm sitting behind bars in a damp dungeon.

I see it's slowly going uphill

A young eagle raised in captivity.

(Lev Rubinstein)

Based on the texts of Nekrasov and Pushkin, a new text with a different content is born.

In modern literature, much attention is paid to form. First of all, this is the emergence of new or development of old genres.

Dystopia is the antithesis of myth, utopia. She challenges the myth and building an ideal society.

The historical process in dystopia is divided into 2 segments: before the realization of the ideal and after. Between them is a catastrophe, revolution or other break in continuity.

Chronotope is the localization of events in time and space. All events take place after (a coup, war, etc.) and in some specific place, limited from the rest of the world.

The hero seeks to destroy the ritual of life. Conflict between “I” and “we”.

The first dystopia was created by E. Zamyatin (“We,” then there were the novels by A. Platonov “Chevengur” and V. Nabokov “Invitation to Execution.”

In the 21st century, dystopia no longer predicts the future, does not forecast it, but helps to recognize reality. In it we see a combination of exaggerated details of our reality with fantastic shifts in this reality.

At the end of the twentieth century. Dystopias by L. Petrushevskaya “new Robinsons”, V. Makanin “Laz”, A. Kabakov “Defector” appear.

The 21st century was opened by T. Tolstaya with the novel “Kys”. In 2001, the writer became the winner of the most prestigious Smirnoff-Booker Prize, which greatly pleased readers.

Even more popular in our time are works written in the “remake” genre.

A remake (remake) appeared first in cinema. Let us remember the endless variations on the Cinderella theme - the films “Merry Fellows”, “Volga-Volga”, “Shining Path”.

Then new versions of well-known works became fashionable in Western literature.

In the 21st century in Russia, Evgeniy Popov clearly made a name for himself, writing mainly in the remake genre. His novel “The Eve Before” is a reworking of Turgenev’s novel with elements of the novels “Smoke” and “Nov”. As befits a remake, the action of Popov’s novel is transferred to present day Germany. Turgenevskaya Elena Stakhova is transforming (here Bunin has already been added). Dissidents are arguing about the future of Russia. Rusya falls in love with the scientist Insanakhorov (a symphony of the literary hero Insarov and the real Sakharov). Between the literary heroes there are real writers of the late twentieth century: Evgeniy Anatolyevich Popov himself, Viktor Erofeev and Dmitry Aleksandrovich Prigov. They are more concerned with issues of creativity. Through the prism of the problems that worried the Russian intelligentsia. 19th century, Popov peers into today, draws parallels, looks for a way out of their impasse. Intertext plays an important role in the style of the novel.

An equally popular genre of the 21st century is travesty (dressing up). Just like in the remake, modern authors rely on classic plots, but use them to show the absurdity of reality. As a result, the tragedy turns into a farce, the deep philosophical problems of the 19th century are diminished under the onslaught of the modern impoverishment of thought. The writers seem to be calling on the reader to stop in the race for the golden calf, stop wallowing in the mud of survival and look at themselves, or even better, deep into themselves, put their thoughts in order. In the genre of travesty, Vyacheslav Pietsukh, the author of the stories “Our Man in a Case,” “Ward No. 7,” “The Life of a Scoundrel,” and the story “New Moscow Philosophy,” showed himself most clearly. Taking as a basis the plots of famous works by Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Goncharov, the writer promises a look at the person of the 21st century. Everything repeats itself. Both caseism and Oblomovism, but only our contemporary is less prepared for trials and more quickly becomes a victim of circumstances, of his idleness. He cannot even commit a crime on the basis of some theory, since, immersed in shallow reality, he sees nothing further than his jars of pickles. The tragedy turns into a headlight, which stands out even more clearly against the background of the classical principle. The feeling of inferiority develops into a second-class complex. In travesty, one is constantly haunted by the thought that something important is missing; every movement seems to take place in emptiness. This feeling is aggravated by the appearance of disguised deception points, each event turns out to be a “hole”.

The most “fashionable” and popular genre of prose of the 21st century is cyberpunk. He was created in 983. American Bruce Bethke. Cyberpunk shows a new direction in the development of civilization: the informatization of society.

In Russia, Alexander Tyurin (novel “Network”), Sergei Lukyanenko (novels “Labyrinth of Reflections”, “Day Watch”, “Night Watch”), Victor Pelevin “novel “Prince of the State Planning Committee”), Dmitry Shubin (“Five Days”) write in this genre mimicry").

Cyberpunk describes human-machine interaction with technological systems. The works show a future where planetary corporations rule, and lone computer geniuses fight for freedom.

The world that the writers describe is close to a “brain screen”. Here the human and the machine, desire and thinking, the brain and the unconscious are inseparable. In the plot, the artificial complication of the real world with the help of imagination appears as an endless engineering project, when the world of technology endlessly produces new and new images.

Computers in such works are given enormous power and strength. They invade everyday life and manipulate human consciousness. Cyberspace is becoming a second reality. And all life is filled with a series of disasters.

A passive society is captive of information power, which manipulates people's consciousness. This world is cold and distant; there is no place for sincere feelings, love, or empathy. A non-human atom is discovered in a person, which destroys a predetermined algorithm, and in the ruins a world of other values opens up.

Cyberpunks are associated with people working for the future. These are “extropians” who view human development as the development of new political institutions. They believe that people will spontaneously organize temporary power structures as needed, and then easily abandon them. "Transhumans" are emerging who study the latest modern technologies to expand human innate abilities and increase life expectancy. In the modern world, technology and life are inseparable. Man and machine are just the result of various kinds of interdependent processes, different possible combinations of atoms. But in a world that has achieved perfection, a fault line appears, which contains the collapse of this fault.

The main task of the System in cyberpunk is to deprive society of humanized humanity, so that people feel like a cog in a totally mechanized world.

This is opposed by the “Islands of Freedom” created by digital punk. The hero is a pessimist and a cynic, for him there is no difference between Good and Evil, but he has a powerful intellect. He fights for personal freedom, does not allow cloning, does not allow invasion into his own world. He is accompanied by explosions and disasters, but he overcomes everything and, gaining freedom for himself, unwittingly saves the world. His actions show that for every cybervillain there is a cyberhero who will act for his own benefit, and as a result will save the planet and humanity.

By the way, in cyberpunk the hero must wear black or mirrored glasses, which helps him see virtual light.

Cyberpunk is characterized by: plot dynamism, entertainment, tragicomic situations, urbanism. The language of these works is filled with specific terms. Chopped phrases.

Thus, one of the most popular writers today, Viktor Pelevin, constantly introduces elements of cyberpunk into his works. In the novel “Prince of the State Planning Committee,” the characters live in two worlds: the real world and different computer programs. The surrounding world is a series of artificial structures. The reader is plunged into the absurd, where it is possible to distinguish between real and fictional reality. The writer claims that every version of the world exists only in our soul. The characters go through a series of transformations that symbolize the process of change not only externally, but also internally.

An interesting novel by V. Pelevin “Generation ‘P’”, in which all visible life is virtual, because drawn by programmers. Certainly. This is not cyberpunk in its purest form, but its elements are clearly visible here. The political life of Russia is created through computer animation. The novel is modeled on the standards of cyberspace. Heroes are simulacra. Outwardly they are people, but in fact they are masks of modern vices. This is the generation that made the history of the 90s in virtual simulation mode. A new creature has appeared - “oranus”, which has no eyes, ears, nose and mind, there is only one nerve cell - a television. Oranus is busy consuming advertising and reproducing it. And although Pelevin does not have the catastrophes that Tyurin, Lukyanenko, Shishkin so love to show, his stories are no less tragic. In the background of double coding in the novel “Generation ‘P’,” as in any postmodern work, echoes of the works of Hemingway, Salinger, the Strugatsky brothers, Castaneda, and Irvine WELSH are easily discernible.

Reading works of modern literature is difficult, but interesting. By entering into a “game” with a writer, you begin to test your knowledge of not only Russian, but also world classics. By comparing the problems raised by artists of the past with the problems of today, you better understand the immortality of the classics and the repeatability of all things. And by learning about the past, you better understand the present and can predict the future.

Test task

Read the lecture carefully and answer the test questions.

A- It reflects modern problems

B- She teaches us to live

B- It takes away from modern problems

2. Which current of modern literature does suffragist prose belong to?

A- To the avant-garde

B- to absurdism

B- to neorealistic

3. In what literature does the neophyte hero appear?

A- in neo-naturalistic

B- in non-religious