Understanding of Modernity and Human History in the Novels of the End of the Soviet Period ("The Scaffold" by Ch. Aitmatov and "Overburdened with Evil, or Forty Years Later" by A. and B. Strugatsky)

Abstract

The article discusses two novels of the end of the Soviet era (The Scaffold, 1987, by Ch. Aitmatov and Overburdened with Evil , 1988, by A. and B. Strugatsky), in which different models of human history are built by the introduction of the gospel story into the controversy of modern life. Various causes for the crisis of modern civilization are put forward: the fall from ontology (Aitmatov) and the rejection of a reasonable construction of the cosmos (Strugatsky). The common point of writers of different anthropological concepts is seen in the belief in the existentialist personality: Aitmatov sees it as the need for personal awareness of the ontological basics of existence; the Strugatskies - as the need to form a non-utopian consciousness in the homo sapiens, ethical criteria to improve the inert matter. The difference in the interpretation of the Evangelical plot is revealed. In Aitmatov's novel, the non-diegetic narrator, who has access to the consciousness of Jesus, identifies ideological conflicts – the dispute with Pilate and inner contradictions in the justification of his sacrificing Jesus. In the Strugatskies' novel, the Evangelical events are given in the story of a trifling character (Judas), and their interpretation by other characters places emphasis on the doom of the Teacher's sacrifice due the level of consciousness of people who are not ready to accept the ethical ideas of Jesus. The author concludes that there is a difference between the authors' concepts of human history, expressed in comparing the Evangelical time and Modernity: Aitmatov recognizes the tragic futility of the Savior's sacrifice, and еру Strugatskies prove the inevitable "overburden of evil" in attempts to improve people's consciousness and the world order.