Poetics of the contemporary Russian literature: narrative specificity, transformation of genres, epos and drama

Abstract

Contemporary Russian literature is a subject of numerous discussions and philological studies in Russia and abroad. Nevertheless there is still no clear-cut description of its main poetic features and dominant tendencies in the literary process. V. L. Shunikov, an assistant professor of Moscow state university and a visiting professor at Seoul national university in 2008-2010, tries to fill up the gap. He analyzed more then ten novels and stories (`povesty`), written in 1980-2000s, and basing on it compares the subject and object structure of the latest Russian prose with the literary tradition as a whole. From one hand these works are examined in the light of the classical narratological concept, grew up on the literature of the 19th-the first half of the 20th centuries- On the other hand the latest Russian novels and stories discusses in comparison with the chronologically nearest aesthetics, e. g. postmodern. Thanks to dominant role of the subjective structure in the novels and stories, written in 1980-2000s, Shunikov pays main attention to the characteristics of the narrators and their competence. The global process of the functional unification and voice equalization of all `speaking subjects` (narrators and characters as well) is discovered in the contemporary prose. There are three steps of this process and for each of them the author of the article describes the most frequent techniques of writing. At the same time it is shown how the transformation of the narrative influences on the internal world. A new- narratological-meaning of such terms as `event`, plot et cetera is explained. At last all these peculiarities eliminate differences between genres and between epic literature and drama. V. L. Shunikov proves the largest part of narrative configurations in the latest prose belongs to the postmodernism, so he corrects commonplace that contemporary Russian literature got over this aesthetics. Author asserts at the same time postmodern writing technique is aimed to manifest not a relativistic postmodern philosophy, but other concepts, then we can talk about POSTpostmodern or neo- (neorealistic, neoromantic, neosentimental…) poetics.