Память и забвение в современной русской прозе (Полина Барскова, Евгений Водолазкин, Мария Степанова)

Abstract

The article analyzes several contemporary Russian literary texts, Living Pictures (2014) by Polina Barskova, Aviator (2016) by Evgeny Vodolazkin, and In Memory of Memory (2017) by Maria Stepanova, in which, on the one hand, writing itself is a form of remembrance (literary creation equates to memory), and, on the other hand, memory establishes and manifests itself by overcoming multifaceted configurations of oblivion. Apart from the fact that all the analyzed texts propose aesthetically and narratologically absorbing conceptualizations of the processes of conversion of elusiveness and nothingness (oblivion) into a new presence (memory), interpretations of literary works from the point of view of oblivion initiate a different understanding of the literary value of oblivion, which is commonly recognized as an anthropological category which stands as the Other of memory, as its minus-priëm (Lotman).