CC BY
12Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 4 (2008 1) 539-555
УДК 100
European "Nigdeya" and Russian "TUtopia" (On the issue of interaction)
Natalia V. Kovtun*
Siberian Federal University, 79 Svobodny, Krasnoyarsk, 660041 Russia 1
Received 27.11.2008, received in revised form 17.12.2008, accepted 24.12.2008
The article considers the formation particularities of Russian and European Utopian discourses (the different variant of the term "Utopia" are given in the title of the article to emphasize the peculiarities of phenomena in Russia and the West). Specific character of the Russian literary Utopia is proved and two main lines of its development are traced: the intellectual and the religious-mystical. The work provides the comparative description of classical art patterns of Utopia and contemporary "permanent Utopias", "quasi- Utopias".
Keywords: literary Utopia, Utopian discourse, permanent Utopia, European Utopia, intellectual Utopia, religious-mystical Utopia, the present, myth.
In the Russian and Western studies of literature, the peculiarity of the Russian culture is often considered through its connection with Utopian dreams and projects. Perhaps there is no better term than "Utopia" to describe modern literature. Avant-gardists' Utopias anticipate the global communist Utopia formed in the art creative work through the socialist realism theory, which, in the 1950-1960-s, was replaced by the retrospective Utopia of "peasant writes" (hicks) in its variety of the author's versions and technocratic Utopias of "molodyozhnaya proza" (a youth prose). In this paradigm the place of post-modernism as a set of techniques used for opposing Utopian intentions, is determined by the role of anti-Utopia.
We consider the notion "Utopia" as a peculiar measuring instrument. Originally it isofestimation
* Corresponding author E-mail address: nkovtun@mail.ru
1 © Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved
kind (with respect to the project contents). At the same time, it is impartial (in respect of the quality of its implementation). The whole spiritual formations and directions of thought in the history of ideas (for example, Freemasonry, Slavophilism and narodnik movement in Russia) can also be understood and explained as Utopian, that is through Utopia which allows to speak about the certain methodological importance of Utopia as a spiritual phenomenon". For the past few years, there have appeared a number of considerable works in history, philosophy, the ideology of the Russian Utopia. The authors of many of the works see the most important reasons of "Russian Utopism" in getting interested in the ideas of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer as well as Western Enlightenment and Renaissance. However, according to Mikhail Bakhtin, the genre
(metagenre) is not just an aesthetic category, but the range of value world perception, the main way of reality comprehension. Therefore, it is in the nation history where you should look for reasons explaining the mobilization of the creative Utopia pathos.
The mentality of the last century artist was formed at the time of proclaimed his thesis "the God has died". The "twilight of Gods" that came after that, led to two consequences: the creation of a new world of art universe, where an artist-demiurge occupies a vacant place of the God. This became the fate of the Russian Avant-garde of the 1910-1920-s. But those who were not prepared for such a radical spiritual restructuring, tried to keep in their own works a Christian pattern of the world and man. The tragedy of "new peasant poets", such as Nikolai Klyuyev, Sergei Klichkov, Sergei Yesenin, who remained alone between two artistically and spiritually related unions of the Russian Avant-garde and socialist realism, is the tragedy of being faithful to transcendental principles at the age of rebellious materiality.
The destroyed Christian harmony of the universe set before a man of the epoch a task of creating a different picture of the world. It is in the crisis historical periods that the interest in Utopia gets intensified. The Utopia in question allows an artist who disappointed in reality, to freely manage the fates of the world and the man. Such turning point periods in the Russian culture of XX century were marked by World War I, the October revolution and the later events of 1950 -1960-s connected with the disclosure of Stalinist repressions.
The basic idea of Avant-garde aesthetics was expressed by P. Picasso in his famous sentence: "I depict the world not as I see it but as I think it to be". The representatives of socialist realism who developed the main ideas of Avant-garde about the creation work - handicraft, the new life construction, as well as the levelling the borders
between the art and the non-art. They led these ideas to the logical completion by building a mystical town in reality turning the life of the whole of the state into some teurge action, artistic act, eclectically combining sectarian, Avantgarde and pseudo-Christian elements.
The Russian culture of the XX-th century was the culture of the stage of collapse. It was the time when there was an obvious threat to the preservation of ethnosocial integrity. It was the time of the Soviet (progressist) Utopia which was aimed at destroying the really existing culture, that is the national culture. In the literature of the second half of the XX-th century, there was marked an insistent interest in the crisis events of the past. By means of interpreting these events, the attempts were made to find the ways of overcoming the tragedy of the present (the tales by V. Rasputin, V. Belov, V. Lichutin, marked by the Utopian intentions). It is in critical moments that there are born the ideas of troubles, the culture degeneration, a wish to rewrite the national history, to change the image of the nation according to a new pattern. The beginning of the 20-th century was characterized by the futurological and Utopian sense of time. And it is marked by the apocalyptic mood as well as by ignoring history as it is, its abolition and desemantization. Post-modernism is a fiasco, of belief in Utopia. But it doesn't guarantee the overcoming of the Utopian discourse. The modern artists try to get free from the charming power of "Nigdeya" (moore in a letter to a friend writes about the island "Nigdeya" ("I'm nowhere"). They also try to transfer the problem to another plane, that of a pure game, profanation. But this is the way they emphasize their close connection with the preceding Utopian tradition.
The sceptical and ironical position of postmodernism not in the least less than avant-garde, emphasizes the demiurgeous claims of art to create a new world of art, which forces out and
substitutes reality. The boundary between avantgarde and post-modernism turns out to be blurred leaving the imprint of secondariness on the aesthetic claims of the latter. A game of Utopia as playing a game connected with the "evicted" self-reflexion of the authors and the simulation of creative energy, makes for transferring attention onto the marginal literary phenomena. This is where the very notion of the world reorganization - novelty - loses its previous criteria. Instead of the here-and-now "paradise', it seems that "the future was yesterday". The global schemes of avant-garde and socialist realism are replaced by the petty intrigues of private, individual Utopias each of which is ready to play a game of truth.
Like the socialist realism, being the ideological stage of avant-garde, used the models of the classical heritage in its artistic schemes, post-modernism elicits accidental, flagmentary, aesthetic values from the bottom of the past and combines them fantastically into a new eclectic unity to make a different sense arise from the accidental combination of the fragments of the previous Utopias. Such a game which is beyond the conventional for the Russian literature moral contextbecame possible only atthe post-apocalyptic time when there came not only "the death of the God",but also "the death of the Satan" which was paid regard to by the modernists of the beginning of XX-th century. The significance of the present crisis, of the period of time when the communist Utopia was destroyed and a new universal myth of the post-modernist society is hardly possible on the previous scale, appears to be valuable by its possibility of codifying the global Utopias of the past, for "while a myth is being created, it isn't realized as such". Its analysis means at the same time its completion and pragmatism. As regards the revision of the past Utopian projects of the world reorganization, it gives an opportunity of making the process of filling the present ideological vacuum predictable and realizable.
It will be only natural, if necessary, to preface the analysis of the Russian literary Utopia with a brief survey of those features which make the modern Utopian projects different from the classical models. In this case it is impossible to differentiate between the peculiarities as quite a number of them are still being revealed. However, some conclusions have already been made. In the modern culture, there prevails the interest in the negative Utopia, anti-Utopia, allotopia or cacotopia. Eugene Shatsky confirms, that "historians studying Utopias, usually conclude their descriptions with the negative Utopias of the first half of the XX-th century considering it to be almost an axiom that the time of positive Utopias has come to an end". The critics of the new century write about "the anti-Utopism as a specific feature of artistic thinking of the second half of the XX-th century".
The interest of the contemporary literature studies in anti-Utopia from the historical and genetic viewpoints is one-sided. The Utopian literature is often considered as a context in which anti-Utopia is formed and anti-Utopian motifs and image are developed. Being aware of the conditional character of the "Utopia - antiUtopia" opposition, we, however, distinguish a number of features, such as the Utopianism of the author's artistic consciousness, the peculiarity of a chronotrop, the Utopian nature, the motive structure). These allow to analyse the Russian Utopia as a relatively independent and original artistic phenomenon.
The alert attitude to Utopian texts is the reaction to the possibility of implementing the world-reorganizing projects in real life: "The 20th century compromised the phenomenon of Utopia like, probably, no other century. The fatal, according to Nickolai Berdyayev, ability of Utopian projects "to come true" was noticed already in the first half of the century".
R. Galtseva notes the dual nature of Utopia. From her point of view, the Utopia is "both
practicable and impracticable". It is impracticable from its "Inside" because of its claims for the perfect harmony of interests, for setting up the society, where everybody is happy. At the same time it is practicable from its "outside", the organizational part - in terms of phalansteries, labour-armies, the life regulation". At present, Utopias more often than earlier, migrate from the area of the art work to the fields of sociological, political, economic researches taking the form of theses and conceptions. The 20th century changed the habitual picture of the latest scientific and technological achievements. Being effected in a direct or indirect way by various theories, the Utopia reflected this influence in the system of its own values, structure and language. The most daring Utopian images (like eugenical, experimental and sexual) seek to be based on the achievements of empirical sciences. In the tradition of the Russian Utopia, this process can be clearly seen in the works by Nickolai Fyodorov ("The Philosophy of the Common Matter") considering the project of the resurrection of ancestors not as an Utopia, but as a working hypothesis demanding its immediate realization.
Explaining the picture of the future, Alexander Bogdanov, Alexander Chayanov, the early Andrei Platonov proceed from their own scientific preferences and discoveries (including the idea of nenewal and psychological compatibility of generations, as is the case in the novel "The Red Star" by Alexander Bogdanov (1907). This thought can be found in the science proposed by him and called tectology. Alexander Chayanov's economic researches concerning the problems of co-operative economy were laid as a foundation into the novel "My Brother Alexsei travels to the country of the Peasants' Utopia" (1920). The classical Utopia had the attraction rather for the economic sciences, whereas the Utopia of the new period of time (more commonly called uhtopia) was formed under the influence of
the philosophy of history. As regards the modern "evpsyche", it is connected with the development of psychology, the ideas of Freudianism and Jung teaching.
The classical European Utopia goes back to two traditions. One of them is that of Plato who is presented by a number of Masonic myths as a divine missionary of the Great Order (in Thomas Taylor's version), and Xenophon. Plato became the first chronicler of the legendary Atlantis and the author of the work about the ideal state. Initially, the description of Atlantis was not so much a historical but rather an allegoric and a speculative composition. In his work "The state", Plato sets hopes on the strictness of the law understood as the law of the universe rather than a legal regulation. He also sets hopes on observing the hierarchy and a firm regulation. The latter allowed the scientists to speak about the author being alien to moral problems, his indifference to moral grounds for the suggested ideal. However, if we take the initiate's viewpoint who makes a perfect story for the non-initiate, we we'll see that the story is naturally formalized. It gives conclusions, but doesn't have any explanations: "Plato wrote for the subtle public capable of understanding the hints". Up to the end of the XIX-th century, the authors of the Utopia create their works as intended for a certain circle of intellectuals who could understand the complex symbolism of religious and esoteric and psychological ways of expressing their Utopian ideas.
As forXenophon, he, onthe contrary, set hopes mostly on the wisdom of the earthly generosity and Enlightenment. Xenophon's "Kiropedia" isn't alien to sketchiness. But in this work, the head of the "blissful" country, called Kir, is realized first of all as a moral example for the subjects. The novel about Kir was laid as a foundation for the Utopian tradition of the enlightened monarchism. Later, during the process of their development and alteration, these ideas were considered as
the sources of the major directions of modern Utopia, such as globalism (or progressism) with its cult of scientific and technical tranformations, as well as the dictatorship of the initiates and intellectuals and the Utopia of "the human self-realization" (the term of Eugene Shatsky). This is where the changes in the sphere of human consciousness beyond the reorganization of the existing structures were the most valuable. These existentially oriented Utopias, which abandoned the tough regulation, restriction, reticence, authoritarianism, the interest in a social system in general - the mood of the people of the end of the XX-th century.
Up to the first decade of the XX-th century, the classical Utopia described islands, cities and countries as being abundant, sunny having luxuriant vegetation where you don't have to work but can have a rest and enjoy yourself for all the time. The modern "Nigdeya" ("I'm nowhere") ignores this factor in principle. The interest in the inner world of a man becomes fundamental. The imagination and dream are recognized as the truth, and the world which is beyond the Utopia, is realized as a mirage. The non-initiate present is the result of delusion "a game of mind". The better world really exists in reality. It is only necessary to become free from the tyranny of habitual ideas, prohibitions and dogmas. There are suggested quite different ways beginning with the participation in sectarian mysteries (the doctrines by Plato and Xenophon are fantastically mixed up) and drug intoxication to the merging with nature and instincts liberation (including feminization and sexual revolution). All these theories are based on the conviction, that irrespective of sociology and politics, it is possible to create a new man having quite different consciousness and will. This Utopia of "the inner truth" is often called by literary critics as "the Utopia of Dionysus" with respect to Nietzsche's authority.
The classical Utopia was looking for the rules, the model and harmony. That is why it was associated with the Apollo beginning. It proceeded from the truth, self-righteousness and self-sufficiency of an idea, which is the guarantee of moral righteousness. The lack of coincidence of the idea and morality caused the disclosure of the Utopia which was conveyed in the Russian culture by the works of Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin ("The History of a Town", 1870), Fyodor Dostoevsky ("The Notes from the Underground", 1864), and Andrei Platonov ("Chevengur", 1929).
The Utopia of the past is didactic and edifying, as well as strict and conceptual. Originated as a story about a far-away and marvelous country, it could not avoid having a descriptive character. Another obligatory feature of the classical Utopia may be considered its aspiration to being "all-embracing", when the author tries to tell everything about "the bissful land" beginning with the economy, society structure to the catering management and the Utopians' fashion. The modern "Nigdeya" ("I'm nowhere") goes away from the global explanations, detailed elaboration and surplus. It tends to experimentation, denying any principles and declaring the triumph of freedom and spontaneity. It longs for the holiday of life. A. Yavlovskaya calls it "permament Utopia", because the imagination is always prepared to reproduce the image of the best in all its possible versions and in all its nicety. The Utopia of human self-realization promises the absolute liberation from the God and the Devil, from the Leader the Benefactor as well as from the objective reality and traditional values. It also promises a new fraternity between people. The only condition to achieve "this happiness" is the ability of a person to get rid of the burden of any authorities.
The scope of the classical Utopia is usually rather broad. It is mainly directed to the distant
past. Later it is directed to the far future. But it is indifferent to the present. The great Utopians of the past, such as Thomas Moore, Francois Rabelais in the Cloister of Theleme, never went beyond the bounds between the Utopia (i.e. the text) and the world (i.e. "the extra textual reality"), between the desirable and real. The style of their works is dreamy, ironic and unrealizable. The Utopia of the XX-th century is connected with the present. It analyses today's problems but as if from the point of view of tomorrow. The attention is refocused from the far on the near, from the general on the particular, from the world on a man. Having found the human measurement, the Utopia lost the pathos of impeccability, its right for the last word. The world imperfection started to be perceived as a direct reflection of the imperfection of the Utopia itself and the guarantee of its further development. The Utopia of the XX-th century parted from the secludedness, the strictness of the form. But it acquired flexibility, dynamism and tension.
In accordance with the change of the general Utopian orientation (from macrocosm to microcosm), there is changed the symbolism of the Utopia, its structure and its character. In the classical Utopia everything was under the control of a wise man or a prophet, who knew the truth. Now he can easily be replaced by "a small man", "the God's fool", a loser, who is a part of the developing civilization (the works by G.Greene, Kobo Abe, V. Lichutin, Valentin Rasputin, Vladimir Makanin, L. Petrushevskaya). This anti-hero is more worried about himself than about the problems of the universe. Hence a relative "modesty" of the plans and intentions of the modern Utopia, which seeks to declare its self-will, but not to achieve the perfection or put an end to the whole of history.
B. de Jouvenel's "Practical Utopia", Dennis Gabor's "The Utopia of a matured society", S. Chase's"ModerateUtopia",ZbigniewBrzezinski's
"Survival Utopias" as well as the works by Daniel Bell and Alvin Toffler are aimed at the modest improvement of the existence and the survival. They lost their previous revolutionary ardour which was in the extreme degree typical for the socialist realism, and changed the ardour to a metaphysical and evolutionary mood. Frequently, the ideal of modern Utopia doesn't have a transcendent dimension, which it used to have (the Utopia turns into the idyll). The idea of the Utopia began to tarnish. The Utopian deabsolutism is not only the result of the positivistic public mood, but some kind of protection from the possibility of the projects' realization. The parting from the ideal makes the Utopia of the end of the XX-th century weak, incomplete, fragmentary and defective. It is not accidental that such projects are called "semi-Utopias" (according to F. Polack), or "preliminary Utopias" (V. Ferkiss).
In connection with the losing of previous strict structure, the blurredness of the borders, modern Utopias cannot practically be classified. V. Chalikova notes, that today the scientists found themselves "before the fact of the degeneration of these historically formed Utopian genres into the Utopian style which is difficult to define correctly, but it is well-known to everyone who is familiar with the Utopian literature, - into some mixture of philosophy of history, social critique, futurology and religious philosophy". As distinct from a historian, an Utopian does not seek the origins of the phenomenon in the past. The Utopian points out those elements in the present which should get developed in the future from the point of view of his project. Such a world model already exists according to the mystical, irrational laws, obeying the Utopian logic of the creator. The Utopian discourse borrows that part from the social critique which is directed not to the concrete vices of a concrete society, not to a system as a whole, but to all the existence as being unreal. The similarity of Utopism to religious
philosophy, eschatology is evident in this context. "The Utopia is always connected with the certain beliefs in the truthfulness and practicability of ideals. And every belief based on ideals can be interpreted as religious. It means that to a certain extent every Utopia is religious".
The boundary making a religious consciousness different from the Utopian one concerns, first of all, the optimistic pathos of the projects of the world reorganization. The Utopian strives to organise a "paradise" on the earth while the orthodox person, believing in the soul salvation takes care of the Kingdom of Heaven. He is alien to the Utopian idea of independent individual self-perfection, the idea of the triumph of natural kindness beyond the test of evil. In the Russian tradition F.M. Dostoevsky ("The Dream of a Strange Man", 1877) pointed out the incompatibility of a weak, mortal human nature with the prospective of "a paradise on earth". However, the connection of the Utopian projects with the mystical prophecies and maxima of the Middle Ages was preserved up to the end of the twentieth century. The Russian authors' hopes for the sacral mission of Russia as the Third Rome were reflected in the peculiar, rebellious and revolutionary pathos of their Utopias (from the avant-gardists, A. Bogdanov to socialist realismorthodox persons and ("peasants authors"). Magic was preferred to the will of progress and history in Russia.
The literary Utopia is the most successive, "the only absolute Utopia, the Utopia in the proper sense of the word", "only the artistic reading of the Utopia lets us understand its sense". The original evolution and the functions of the artistic Utopia are connected with the development of the literary process. The form of the Utopia mostly comes up to a novel. The American researchers G. Negley and D. Patrick, the compilers of the anthology "In the Search of the Utopia", pointed out three basic features making the artistic Utopia different
from the other literary or speculative forms. The Utopia is fictitious, it describes a certain state or a community. Its subject is a political structure of this fictional state or community.
Philologists are inclined to explain some peculiarities of the structure of the artistic Utopia by its proximity to science fiction. L. Sargent came to the conclusion that "after 1950 the Utopian fiction almost completely became a part of science fiction". Not denying the interpenetration of the Utopia and the science fiction, we must emphasize that the displacement of the artistic accent from the idea to the plot is typical of the science fiction, when the author most of all values the entertaining character of the describable events. The science fiction is not always concentrated on the construction of the possible image of the future or the past. Social problems are not obligatory here. The fiction in the Utopia serves to reveal the inner meanings and plays the role of additional information confirming the author's idea. That is why the science fiction in the Utopia is relatively unartful. The modern "NoWhereness" ("Nigdeya") owes the invention of the value of the single, flexibility, capability for reflexion, interest of the plot, an active character to the science fiction influence. The new features of the modern Utopia are a reflection of the general tendency to the fictionize Utopian "scheme" subordinating the depiction to a certain artistic logic, artistic measure.
The history of the Russian literary Utopia is traditionally dated from the XVIII-th century. At that time, the well-known works of European Utopists were translated into Russian. The cultural groups of Russia were familiar with the works of Plato, Xenophon, Moore, Mersye. Utopian works came to the capitals among the broad stream of masonic editions. The works by V.F. Odoevsky "The Year 4338", the work by F.V. Bulgarin "Probable tales", the work by A.D. Ulybyshev
"The Dream" are considered to be imitations of the Utopia Mersye.
Speaking about the Russian literary Utopia origins, specialists note two moments: the indisputable incontestable influence of the West-European (mainly French) tradition and the reforms of Peter I. It is also important to point out the rapid spreading of Freemasonry in Russia in the second half of the XXVIII-th century. The mystical ideas of the world and human transformation after the image of the divine temple, its new cutting from a raw lump of matter are very important in Freemasonry. These ideas also turned out to be topical for the artistic Utopia. Freemasonry became one of the ideal projection versions (the Utopia of self-perfection as the Utopia of ideal government). In the Russia of those times keen interest in the French Enlightenment was combined with the inclinations to abstract religiousness and mysticism. It is explained by the influence of the national Utopia (the messianic idea of the Third Rome). At that time, the ideology of the Enlightenment was only an intermediary link. The first Utopists (A. Sumarokov, M. Kheraskov, M. Shcherbatov, V. Levshin) were the members of the order themselves. Their literary works didn't have only the artistic meaning. Thinking about the alternative spiritual way of the nation development, they realized it through and by means of mysticism. The mystical constituent was the most important in the Russian artistic Utopia from M.M. Shcherbatov to A. Bogdanov and socialist realism representatives.
Peter I's innovations depriving the Russian history of the sacral, shade changed it from the object of divine prophetic gift to the object of human manipulations. During the process of Peter's reforms, the Russians "lost their initial identity" which demanded creating new Utopian conceptions of history. Peter became to be realized as a superman, demiurge or antichrist
(in Old Believer's teaching) after changing the course of time (changing the New Year day), changing radically the image of the whole nation. Reality lost its substantive features. It could be modelled after one's own pattern. Starting with Peter I the Utopian projection became one of the most important functions of the authorities.
In the second half of the XVIII-th century Russian wanderers came to the Utopia scope. However, the gap between the artistic literature and life is often levelled in this case. There began a frantic search for invisible towns, legendary lands to which roads were laid in historically concrete places. The beginning of the Age of Enlightenment, marked by the harmonization of passionaric ethnos energy, gives rise to Utopian hopes among the Russian intellectuals for the forthcoming realization of "golden age" of universal justice, education, and prosperity. The Utopia seemed to be practicable, logically completing the whole history of "the Third Rome". At that time not a concrete person - a tsar, monarch but the whole of the nation together put into practice the alchemical way of a happy state selected by the God. But by the end of the century it became clear, that all the conscious attempts to realize the Utopia into the history were doomed to failure. Decembrists' Utopia finished the Age of Enlightenment, in its tragic prospects, the kingdom of "Liberty, equality, fraternity" went to the scaffold. The price of the Utopia was named but the belief in its boundless opportunities was not lost at all. The unconscious realization of the Utopia took plase as a theatrical experiment, conducted by the monarch's will.
In terms of its contents, the Utopia isn't realized in reality. But as far as the human logic is able to restore the Utopia by parts, it appeared to be possible to stage, play and see the Utopia. We only had to imagine that "God Almighty" is together with us and the Absolute is cognizable. Illusion starts to synthesize reality, the Utopia
leaves the dream-land and comes down to the solid earth. Catherine as a worthy director of Peter's scenario of the Russian history, aims to embrace all the areas of life by the Order. The Utopian Law is called to provide the maximum space for realizing mythological ideas. To become aware of this dictatorial essence of Utopism proved to be practically impossible under the absolute monarchy conditions.
On the one hand, the constructions of intellectual dreamers (from the Masons, Petrashevcy, Jeorge Sand followers, to Westerners and Slavophils). On the other hand, the mystical Old Belief's projects were peculiar alternative to the state Utopia playing a significant role in the Russian Utopian discourse. The intellectual elite inherited the mystical and historical Peter's experience both in the positive (F. Bulgarin, V. Odoevsky) and negative contexts (M. Shcherbatov, A. Ulybyshev) making their own original scenarios of the state rearrangement. But the people search for their native, original Saint Russia outside the area of the profaned empire. Wanderers rush for the mystical town of Kitej, Belovodye. They searh for the mysterious "Ignat's town" where "the ancient piety" is preserved and there are not any signs of the state antichrist power. In this particular line, the ideally connected with the Old Russian "wandering", "dreams", "visions", making it possible to revise the classical structure of metagenre in favour of the national tradition. And on the contrary, the rationalistic image of a "blissful country" characteristic for the West-European mystical and Utopian canons, the Russian culture is frequently just the background emphasizing certain social constructures.
The scientifically checked civilization image is presented by the sociological schemes. The people's religious ideal is only outlined, blurred but the aspiration for its realization is great. In 1916 N. Berdyayev pointed out the typical for
Russian sects "thirst for changing literature into life, and culture into being". Utopian sectarian beliefs, their wish for changes differ essentially from the literary metagenre by their extreme maximalism, the direct corporal expression, the demand for the immediate change from the idea in to action, by the extreme character of the practices caused by all this. "The negation of private property develops in parallel with the family destruction and the power concentration in the hands of a spiritual leader". It is not accidental that after the Revolution of 1917 the Bolsheviks repeatedly tried to extrapolate the ideological experience of mystical sects to the own projects of the world rearrangement.
The legend about Belovodye where people live according to the divine truth, was born in Old Believers' consent of "runners". Their main doctrine was the demand for "leaving", "running away" from the world after the reforms of Nickon who found himself under the power of "Antichrist seal". The name Belovodye reminds us of the apocryphal's water, which is as "white as milk". In the Old Slavonic language, "white" is the synonym for the notions of purity and freedom. The road to the secret country was indicated in "The Traveller" which is a peculiar route. As distinct from the ideal itself, the road looked extremely realistic. The description of the road was not connected with a literary style but it was respected as the original. It was made by "the spectators" who had been looking for "the paradise on the earth" for dozens of years. The exactness of the "document" indicating the well-known towns and villages was disputed in one detail: after the list of the geographical centres, for instance, there was a reference to Peter Kirillov... The absence of a guide made it impossible to reach the Absolute. However even in this case the belief in Belovodye remained firm. The place was not found not because there was no such a place, but because they had been looking for it not very
well. It created special relations between the text ("The Traveller") and "the reality beyond the text" where everything comes true. The reality itself is provided with "Utopian features".
According to the legend, the ideal land is situated in places difficult of access, behind high mountains, on an island. The land is fertile and very well suitable for the human life. its inhabitants are never taken ill. They are not worried about their age and misfortunes. It is the kingdom of the true faith, inhabited exceptionally by the saints. There is not any power except the spiritual and religious tutorship. The Belovodye inhalitants do not know wars, crimes, and quarrels. Inherently, the world of "the paradise on the earth" is out of time. Invariability is the form of life in Belovodye. The ideal is considered as the Universe centre, this is the absolute top, the navel of the Earth.
Belovodye is a version of social and geographical people Utopia, whereas the legend about the town Kitej is "ukroniya". Its origins go back to the verbal legend of the horde yoke time. The legend became the common property of the human consciousness closer to the XVIII-th century. Originally, it was about a concrete place near Novgorod and about a concrete event - the building of Small and Big Kitej at the order of Prince Vladimir. Later the historical foundation was lost. The town Kitej, wonderfully saved from Baty's hordes, hidden under the Lake Svetloyar waters, became a "concealed place", a metaphor for "the paradise on earth" from where the road to the paradise of heaven begins.
In terms of quantity, the Russian literary Utopia is inferior to the West-European. Even within the limits of the centre of the empire, a Russian native reader is more acquainted with European patterns of metagenre than with the literary Utopias of his compatriots. This is explained by the specific character of the national Utopism, alien to the image of "the regime and
state", considered by A. Foygt as the most typical of the West Utopia.
Taking into account the serious influence which the national intellectual traditions had upon the formation of the Russian Utopian discourse, the change of the focus from the "Utopian state" to the"Utopian individuality" should be pointed out. The Russian public thought was always directed to the theme of a person, his fate, destination. "It is just a man who was in the centre of intellectual searching, while anthropology was one of the most important principles of the Russian Utopia". The representatives of the Russian Utopian tradition cared more not for the structure, the "beautification" of a fair state, but rather for the opportunities and methods of "the clearing from the evil" before finding "the paradise on the earth". The thirst for the effective transformation of life, its healing invariably controlled a Russian person. Perhaps that is why Marx (a successor of West-European Utopists - Plato, More, Campanella and others) impressed Russia so much. Marx promised not only to explain the world but to change it. The Bolsheviks, who were Marx's successors, combined the West-European "rational" Utopism with the Russian thirst for the universal world transformation.
It is tight for the Russian Utopia in the limits of a concrete text. It is swiftly "falling through" beyond the known limits, sweeping away the usual assessment criteria. The Russian Utopia did not always take shape of an independent work. "It was rather often dissolved in literary works of other genres - social novels, science fiction stories". The Russian Utopia was a quasi-Utopia (an Utopian fragment "Oblomov's Dream" in the novel by I.Goncharov, Raskolnikov's dreams and an image of "the golden age" in Versilov's confession in "The Teenager" by F. Dostoevsky, "the forth Vera Pavlovna's dream" in the novel by N.Chernyshevsky, the blessing island Matyora in
the story "Farewell to Matyora" by V.Rasputin, an Utopian image of a fishing commune in "Czar Fish" by V. Astafiyev and legendary Belovodye in the novel "Wanderers" by V. Lichutin).
The attitude to the Utopia, the assessment of its perspective was treated in different ways in Russia and Europe: "The West cherished and cultivated the Utopia culture without mixing it with the reality culture". The Utopia defended the present not allowing to level the border between a dream and reality. At the same time, it restrained pragmatism, the dictatorship of cold calculation. In fact, it allowed to see in the Utopia an ally of progress.
The situation in the Russian culture is quite the opposite. Here the Utopia is more often considered as a means of fighting against progress (the West). It is realized as an attempt to stop it ("The aim in life will be the rescue from culture" as N. Fyodorov thought) - to get out of the time sphere into the apocalyptical kingdom of untimeliness. It is equally typical both of the vanguard-revolutionary formations of the first half of the XX-th century, overcoming progress by its own technical resources and of patriarchal projects of the end of the century ("village prose") trying to turn the time back. The Utopism is admitted as one of the essential characteristics of the Russian national idea.
The Russian Utopia is alien to the traditional exotics of the European "Nowhereness", telling about the unusual country, constructed according to the author's own credo. The exceptions, when an author speaks directly about his homeland, transformed by his imagination, are not great in number. On the contrary, in the Russian tradition, "we meet with an invented country rather rarely. More often than not, it is still Russia but changed, bettered, which got rid of the drawbacks that the author saw in it". Such a concentration of the Utopists onthe homeland depiction, shows a special connection of Russian writers with the "Russian myth". The writer is possessed by the question
about the cause of misfortunes accompanying the historical way of Saint Russia. He tries to tie up the "ends" and "origins" of history, to understand its concealed meaning. It is not accidental that the main Utopia question is "What to do?" or just "Where to go?" (for folk Utopias). Preserving the most attractive features of their imagination, (social, economical, political), the writers change life at their homes putting forward new and new projects considering Russia the Third Rome. It turns out, that there is nowhere to go: the Satan came to Russia from the West, while infidels are in the East... There is one way - to go, deep into the inland trying to catch up with the country, which moved off in to the underwater miraculous Svetloyar spaces, into Belovodye lying beyond the last boundary... A. Etkind's remark about the specific character of the Russian Utopia of the XX-th century as "Heretopia" (because the action takes place in Russia) keeps topicality for the national Utopian discourse on the whole.
The division into metropolitan and provincial is typical of the Russian Utopia. The national idea much more rarely "encroached on the rural territory". The Utopias are directed to capitals that "is the evidence of instability of the Russian urban self-feeling". The antinomy of big cities and outskirts is perceived the as evidence of a cruel political structure (progress). It is more evident in Peterburg which was a peculiar caprice of monarchical power. "The Chimerical spirit of the city, born in a titanic dream of sovereign power, emanates the radiation of vision". Prince M.M. Shcherbatov directs his theory of Russia renewal to Peterburg. The character of the Utopia "Dream" by A. Ulybyshev strolls about the "avenues" in the Peterburg of the future; the phantasmagoric ghost town controls the characters' souls of the works by F. Dostoevsky, A. Bely, V. Rasputin, marked by the Utopian discourse. The architectural look of the capitals is of a thoroughfare type as understood in the
Russian literary tradition. This look is always changed, turned, turning to the Utopia.
The Russian plans of the world reorganization are connected with to "their own", that is usual and kind. They are created not for "others" but for "native" people. Only theoretical ways of changing life and strict life regulation are very seldom. In the classical Russian Utopias (from M.M. Shcherbatov to N.G. Chernyshevsky) we can see partial changes of social order. The future arises from the present and so it is especially "recognizable". It is also important and beautiful. In avant-garde Utopias, the image of the future is already opposed to reality. And it is connected with "the other" time, space and human being.
Any compassion to "the living present" is excluded. The present world should be humbled and overcome (the predictable pathos of the socialist realism culture) so that one can easily rush to the Eternity. But even the avant-garde plans of radical rebuilding of the Universe give Russia a selected role to be the world revolution centre. Against the will of the creators, they preserve the connection with the ancient archetypes of the national culture.
The general uncertainty and the blurring of traditional characteristics in Russian Utopias make us believe that even the most classic Utopias (like "Travel to the Land of Ophyr". by M.M. Shcherbatov; "The Year 4338 "by V. F. Odoevsky) "are created as short Utopian stories". The blurring of genre criteria, the open finale and dramatic effect become typical for the European Utopias only at present. But all these characteristic for our "hereutopia" were in herited from the past. Up to the XX-th century Russia did not know any social and political Utopias with the obligatory specification of a new government structure. Revolutionary and avant-garde thoughts were not the exception. They were mainly aimed at the negation of the "old things" rather than the creation of the "new ones" which would be
miraculously very clear and well-organized. In the literature of socialist realism the Absolute is described apophaticly: mystical creations of the magic land Dair (the revolutionary poem by A.G. Malyshkin), Blue cities (by A. Tolstoi), Ocean (the novel by L. M. Leonov "Road to the Ocean").
In general, the Russian Utopias have little orderliness. Their creators mostly believe in the moral transformation of the society, but not in the social and economic and industrial power. In the Russian literature, money and scientific and technological achievements have a strong negative sense. They lead to the general degeneration. And the Utopian horizon does not correlate with the economic one. As a result of neglecting Utopian dreams deprive the Russian Utopia of the "all-embracing" sense. It means that there is no full characteristic of a new society in any Russian Utopias. Almost in every project we can notice some indifference, the author's carelessness when describing the political situation of an invented country. According to T. Chernyshev, the only exception is the work by Prince M. M. Shcherbatov.
The observance of morality in the classical European "nowhereness" was provided by the stability of the law. Legal norms and moral values had obligatory outer grounds. In the Russian Utopia the accents are diametrically opposite: the moral improvement of a personality is the guarantee of the country's prosperity. But the government decrees are formal and they are not obligatory. They are always connected with the violence overa person even in a just government structure. Therefore the Russian "heaven" is not a kingdom of democracy where the law establishes freedom but an area where everyone is free to do what he or she likes. Moral criteria in the Russian Utopia are principal. This fact explains why so many researchers have a strange sense that "although the Russian literature has few real Utopian works, it seems that the Utopia runs
through it". The Russian "panutopism" is the result of spreading and approval of the Utopian values (S. Grachiotti says that among them there is the "Utopian conscience", moral maximalism which was developed in the "Utopian nature") which are situated out of the boundaries of Utopia as a literature story. The belief in moral self-perfection of a person that can restore "paradise on earth" is the essence of the moral progress which is more accepted in Russia. While the European Utopias are preoccupied with the improvement of government that kept step with the development of civilization, the Russian projects concentrating on the personal improvement, try to stop the progress.
A new image of Utopia is created by the works of A. Bogdanov. His novel "Red Star" is the change of the Utopian tradition which became indifferent to the moral aspects of the future. (So, the author follows K.S. Merezhkovsky, the elder brother of the famous writer D.S. Merezhkovsky's ideas.)
In the Utopia "Paradise on Earth or a Dream in a Winter Night" of 1903, K.S. Merezhkovsky shows the eugenics success which helps to get rid of "useless races". The new appearing race of the inhabitants of the Earth, does not have any problems, has to live in idleness without any accepted standards. The ideas of Bogdanov have some reflection of the Utopian and religious thought in its materialistic image at the boundary of the XXI - XX centuries. The mason symbols have very a significant meaning in the text (the images of pentagram, the Third eye, the phalanstère, motifs of prophecy, initiations, "the brotherhood").
In the world of the literary Utopia the author of "the Red star" is one of the nearest godfathers of N. Fyodorov. For both of them the Utopia is real work which should be realized immediately. A. Bogdanov combines the knowledge and actions. The dream of the proletariat's all-space
kingdom lays over the ideal of N. Fedorov's space immortality. A. Bogdanov contrasts the teaching of Enlightenment with the idea of social equality which is realized in mystical ways. His Utopia perfectly satisfies the requirements of West-European features of metagenre. It is "all-embracing", rational and strictly regulated. The word becomes the means of reality transformation. And it also begins to have a magic sense.
The change of the Utopian orientation, and progress fetishism hide the person in novels making his presence not obligatory. A traditional Utopian hero-traveller (Lenni) is a modern God's fool and a mediator between the selected society (Martians-communists) and "the germ humankind", (the inhabitants of the Earth). The fiasco of the hero, his inability to live in the rationalized communist world will result in the further discredit of intelligentsia in the Bolshevist culture. A. Bogdanov was the first to deprive the intelligentsia of registration in the phalanstères. He gives Khiram's hammer (the masonic symbol of higher morality) to the hands of an uneducateed worker anticipating Lenin's and Trotsky's Utopian thoughts. This worker will use Khiram's hammer in the way he understand it and soon he will turn into "a prophet with an axe predicted by Dostoevsky". The escapist Utopia changes into heroic (of Prometheus type). And the armed prophet is prepared for everything. He sweeps away all taboos before him. He is intolerant to any Utopias except his own one. He is intolerant to everybody, who is not with him, because he is the owner of the last and only truth. A. Lunacharsky's and A. Bogdanov's ideas about the proletarian culture were realized already in the first years after the revolution.
This metamorphosis that happened, was connected with the situation of the XVII-XIX-th centuries. It was the time when the high ideals of the Age of Enlightenment (humanism, tolerance and education) were replaced by the directly
opposite ones (dictatorship, intellectualism, and nationalism). The theomachic thoughts of the French enlighteners gave some periphery results including the Utopian plans of changing the Russian sectarian world: "the culture that comes from out side, "is translated" with the help of the cultural codes of this tradition in this way it joins the national culture history". A. Bogdanov adapts the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment and mystical Freemasonry to the needs of workers including them in the paradigm of the revolution time.
N. Fyodorov's, A. Bogdanov's, K. Merezhkovsky's, V. Khlebnikov's Utopias sum up the moral and Utopian tradition of the Russian Enlightenment of the XVIII-XIX-th centuries. The Utopian archetypes which had been created in the Russian intellectual Utopia in since the time of M.M. Shcherbatov, changed in the novel by A. Bogdanov. He suggests a perfect communist world instead of the demands for some social improvement. An artist and a dictator is at the helm of the Utopia, he is not a philosopher and a poet who is surrounded by the educated elite, but the creator of a new world. The model of a new society includes the elements of the ancient cultural codes of heathenism, Gnosticism, mystical ideas. The Russian nation is Messiah showing a new communist truth to the world. This is a nation of "theomachists". And with the help of this nation, the Utopia becomes a reality. The national culture and history are desemanticized. The New Russia does not have any analogues in the past and present. It is the country from the future world that appears today. The socialist Russia is a post-apocalyptical phenomenon. It is immanently characterized by the death cult, and the suffering cult. The Utopia is marked with the eschatological symbols. Following its predestination, Russia becomes the world's cultural centre, an ideal country. And Europe, America, the East resign themselves to Russia.
The Utopian literature development of 1920-s is described as a unity of national, religious and intellectual tendencies of the metagenre formation. Today and tomorrow are close enough to bring down the Utopian horizon. By this time the two main tendencies of metagenre formation there is published: the "post socialist" Utopia of I. Kremnev (the pen-name of A. Chayanov) "The Travel of My Brother Alexey to the Country of Peasants Utopia" and the antiUtopia by Y. Zamyatin called "We" (1921). This antiUtopia of Y. Zamyatin sums up the gnostical and Utopian searching of the beginning of the century.
The short story by Chayanov combines the features of Masonic and educational Utopia with the tale plot of folk Utopian legends about searching for the mystical town of Kitezh, Belovodye. The image of the progressive and urban Utopia is not the same as the image of the other Utopia, the country of "garden". We can see the image of the ideal peasant future with the motifs of paradise, abundance, delight, freedom, androgyny and isolationism. The epicurean spirit runs through the Utopia which is marked by the image of Telem cloister by Rable. Its ideal citizenship is a titanic creator, "Prometheus theomachist", who performs Rableisian expoits and 'creates new forms of the being'. The moral and religious context of the demiurgeous actions is secondary and not obligatory. The secret of the world harmony which was accessible in the masonic Utopia only for some people, is open now for every peasant-writer.
The works by A. Bogdanov and A. Chayanov create the examples of a new positive Utopia which were inherited by the Russian literature up to the end of the XX-th century. The dialogue between a city and a village was very significant in the formation of the Utopian prose tendencies in the second half of the XX-th century, which was parallel to the intellectual Chayanov's Utopia. The "new peasant" poets develop this dialogue.
The folk Utopianism was one of the sourses of the dialogue. And we can see it later in the global Utopia of "peasant writers" (from early stories by A. Solzhenitsyn to "Lada" by V. Belov and the Utopian novels by V. Rasputin, V. Lichutin). The interest stability in the religious Utopianism with its maximalism, rebellious pathos, and prophetic intonations is one of the charasteric features of the present national culture.
The intellectual situation in the XX-th and XXI-st centuries proves that the dreams about Russia's revival as a peasant country are not to come true. The idea of the 'bright future' with the Russian progress (avant-garde and socialist realism Utopias) and traditionalists (new peasant writers, "folk prose" ) trying to return it, is not possible any more. Russia has been deprived of the protection of the Utopia and faces the real history. In this painful situation, the literature of post-modernism described it somewhere.
In the XX-th century, a man of multitude as a representative of the culture periphery becomes the central image of the world picture in art. The human personality was destroyed in the Utopian ruins. It was crushed by the chaos and now the "waste man" has to fulfil this mythological function. The post-modernist writing mythologizes not only the world picture but also the personality of the character. But the pathos of the author's myths is decided not in a traditional way. They don't perform their main harmonizing function. The spontaneous individual Utopias are caught in a net of badly developing infinity which never meant something. Each Utopia is ready to be the truth, but not to prove it.
Even after a brief survey of the modern literature, we can make the conclusion about permanent significance of the Utopian metagenre. At present the Utopia is changing its form (the actualization of "spatial myths", the text "openness", dynamism, indistinct metagenre features) and its essence ( putting emphasis on
exoteric principles which have an influence upon reality, including the conflict and suffering in the near future). But there is always the Utopia in the human consciousness, and this fact differs from the accepted conception about the end of the century as the time of anti-Utopias.
When we analyse the development of the Russian Utopian traditions (in its intellectual and folk variants) we can notice the succession of the development of the Utopian archetypes, patterns, themes. The "Memory" of a metagenre preserved the figurative stuff of masonic rites and the gnostical mythology which was very important at the beginning of the XX-th century. It was the time of avant-garde thoughts. The main principle of the modern Russian Utopia, besides exoterism and messianism, (the connection with the "Russian idea") is radical and literal claims to change the history, the world and the people. The boundary between the text and the reality is blurred. The intellectual plans of the existence reorganization which were made by the classics of the Utopian genre, turn into the direct guide for action, that is under the interpretation of the avant-garde with its idea of life building art. The change of the Utopian viewpoint (from theory to practice), required a new system of values where the former morality, compassion and unity would not be very important (the avant-garde and revolutionary plans, the Utopia of socialist realism).
The modern Russian Utopia follows the classical examples of metagenre taking its features like 'ours', the national orientation and cautious relations to occidental cultures. But there is no unity inside the progressive and traditionalistic tendencies of the Russian Utopianism (theomachic Utopias of Bogdanov, Lunacharsky, Maxim Gorky are evidently opposed to the official political Utopia of power popularized by Lenin. Then the Masonic and educational Utopia of Trotsky was declared as a hostile Utopia at the time of Stalin's myth of forming 'a happy society').
In the culture of the beginning of the XX-th century an intensive information exchange takes place between different variants of Utopias (sectarians- revolutionaries, masons - revolutionaries, the representatives of avantgarde - revolutionaries). By the end of the 1930-s, the political Utopia was proclaimed as the only reality. It include the masonic emblems and rites, the extreme experience of the sectarian Utopian realization and the ideas of ancient Gnostics which were borrowed from the art projects of the Silver Age. All the forms of the Utopianism now either serve the Utopian state or resist it and preserve the obvious or concealed dependence on it. The exceptions are partly the sectarian Utopias. They are based on the principles of "akhronnost", "going away" from reality, "non-participation" in the sacrament of the Utopian empire. This practice of isolationism allowed "peasant" writers to appeal to the Old Belief authority as the expression of 'purity' and righteousness of the old Russia, whose commandments should be revived now in the profane reality.
The discredit of the totalitarian Utopia and of the complementary literature begins with the gradual 'destruction' of the canon. Some components of the human existence leave the sphere of the Utopian influence. During the time of the 'thaw', the private life is excluded from the Utopia boundaries. On the one hand, the failure of the anthropological experiment that became apparent, made the official demands for the literature production tougher (art version replaces the absence of "new" reality). And on the other hand, it profanes them. The Utopia changes into the anti-Utopia. The canonical novels of the end of the 1950-1970 s already have the features of involuntary self-parody (The works by V. Kozhevnikov, G. Nikolayeva, V. Kochetov).
But even the 'thaw' literature was not free from the Utopianism. The creative work of the 'young' writers was anti-Utopian to the orthodox
socialist realism. But it had loyalty to the Utopian art works of the 1920-1930 s (the art of life construction, belief in the mystical power of progress, the saving machine potential, the man-teurg, the "bright future"). The canon "reduction" has the consequence of appearing "semi-Utopias". It is a text that includes the features of socialist realism aesthetics and new values of individualistic consciousness, the freedom of the individual. The Utopia and anti-Utopia have a complicated, and discrepant contradictory "dialogue", in "The Russian Forest" by L. Leonov, in "Farewell, Gulsary" by Ch. Aitmatov, the early works by A. Solzhenitsyn, V. Grossman.
The peculiarity of the modern metagenre development becomes a combination of the Utopian cycles. Some parts of them were united by a common "program" of the achievement of the mystical ideal (communism, Kitezh, Belovodye). The metagenre movement from an Utopian story to its cyclization has a tendency to increase the imaginative space where the all-round understanding of the Utopia and Utopian conceptions is possible. We should also notice the opposite tendency in the prose of 1990-s. Rasputin writes short stories which can help to show the present world that does not have its harmonizing (Utopian) basis.
The process of overcoming the Utopian discourse in the post-modernist literature is not so much one-sided. The dethroned Utopia of socialist realism which compromised the very principle of the Utopian world understanding, lead to the displacement of the art criteria. But up to the 1990-s the energy of reorganization had almost disappeared. The way out of the post-modernist crisis situation as postutopism is paradoxically connected with the a new future ideal like a new Utopia or the revival of the famous Utopian practices (socialist realism, sectarianism).
The analysis of the Russian literary Utopia makes it possible to state that the wish to get
free from the previous heritage (Avant-garde and socialist realism Utopias), to get rid of it and reach the paradise immediately, changed into the nostalgia for culture and national tradition (the patriarchal Utopia of "derevenshchiks" ("peasant" writers), the interest in regional Utopianism). However, the returning from the Eternity reveals "the poverty" of the present (the "playing"
metaUtopias of post-modernism), where there is no place for the ideal and arises a new tendency to get to the "different" future. This situation of negation, the Utopia profanation and the clear Utopia melancholy is one of the constants of modern culture, which shows the impossibility to imagine Russia and the whole world beyond the Utopian context.
