Between Modernity and Myth: Alexey Varlamov's Novel "The Dome»

Abstract

The article considers the artistic worldview in A. Varlamov's novel "The Dome" (1999). The author of the article clarifies the place of this novel in the writer's works, the balance of the confessional-autobiographical discourse with the mythopoetic thinking characteristic of the writer himself and the central character-the intellectual. The representation of the province and Moscow of the late Soviet and "perestroika" time is analyzed as well as the heterogeneous university environment ranging from the auditorium to the dormitory and informal youth movements. Special attention is given to the study of the semantics and structure of the urban topos of Chagodai, its specific historical and mythological origins and meanings. Utopian models of the Dome, the Kingdom of God on Earth are considered in detail from the perspective of the author's image, the life experience of the central character, public life collisions of the frontier time. Conclusions are drawn about the prophetic nature of this work, where the artistically recreated realities of the end of the previous century serve as the basis for anxious forebodings about the prospects for the the life in the country in the coming decades.