The “Dacha Myth” in Russian Literature of the Turn of the 20th–21st Centuries: The Case of Yuri Mamleev

Abstract

The formation of the “dacha myth” in Russian literature at the turn of the XX–XXI centuries is shown on the prose of Yu.V. Mamleev, primarily his novel “Wandering Time” (2000). Based on the socio-cultural evolution of the phenomenon of the dacha in the USSR, the dynamics of the “dacha topos” in Mamleev's prose is traced: in the 1960s (“Connecting Rods”, etc.) this is the final apotheosis of the Soviet neo-myth about the Russian landowner's estate as a “nest” of violence and vice; in the 1990s–2000s. (“Wings of Horror”, “Wandering Time”, “World and Laughter”, etc.) this is the birth of a new myth about the post-Soviet dacha with clear positive connotations. To understand the innovative content of the “dacha myth”, the philosophical theses of Mamleev (“Last Doctrine” and “Russian Doctrine”), as well as the essence of his “metaphysical realism” and “metaphysical patriotism” are considered. On this basis, the analysis of six dacha loci in the novel “Wandering Time” is carried out. It is concluded that Mamleev's “dacha myth” is a fundamentally new category compared to the “estate myths" of the Silver Age and the Soviet era, since it is not based on the mythologeme of “paradise on earth” and not the exposure of the “exploitative” “hell”, but the doctrine of “Eternal Russia”, which more than “paradise” and “hell” combined. According to the writer, “Eternal Russia” opens up in a unique dacha space peculiar only to Russia, simultaneously preserving the Absolute (God), opened into an incomprehensible Abyss and preserving its natural and cultural identity.