Confronting the Present Time: A Dialogic Nature of the Contemporary Petersburg Text

Bartłomiej BRĄŻKIEWICZ

Department of Anthropology of Russian Culture, Institute of Russian and East European Studies, Faculty of International and Political Studies, Jagiellonian University, al. Mickiewicza 3, 31-120 Cracow, Poland , Poland

Abstract

Against the background of the contemporary Russian literature, the Petersburg prose deserves to be considered as a distinct category. Such an approach can be justified, on the one hand, by a tendency to systemize the current literary output on the basis of the regional criteria and, on the other, by Vladimir Toporov’s idea of the Petersburg text generally adopted by scholars in their reception of the output in question. Works by Sergey Arno and Yegor Fetisov are model examples of diverse literary pieces representing the Petersburg text. Apart from typical descriptions of urban space and local color, as well as references to the specific atmosphere and ambiance of the Northern Capital, Arno’s and Fetisov’s novels comprise interesting images of the ideological attitudes of their protagonists expressed in the dialogues. As befits Russian literary tradition, the dialogues address universal themes, focusing either on socio-political issues or on Weltanschauung-related and existential problems. This observation leads to the conclusion that one of the characteristic features of the contemporary Petersburg text is its dialogic nature. The ideological content expressed in the dialogues may be fully brought to light by means of the application of the communicative approach, inspired by Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory, to the literary interpretation.

Keywords:

Russian literature, contemporary Russian literature, Petersburg prose, Petersburg text in Russian literature, dialogism