Moscow after the Apocalypse
2013; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 72; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.5612/slavicreview.72.3.0481
ISSN2325-7784
Autores Tópico(s)Eastern European Communism and Reforms
ResumoThis article focuses on the apocalyptic images of Moscow that not only proliferated in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union but that have also persisted during the 2000s. Mark Griffiths analyzes Tat'iana Tolstaia's Kys' (2000) and Dmitrii Glukhovskii's Metro 2033 (2005), comparing and contrasting the roles of Muscovite space in these narratives. Riddled with misinterpreted ideas and mutated remainders, turned upside down by ideological volte-face, and haunted by uncanny vestiges of preapocalyptic life, these postapocalyptic worlds are not tabulae rasae but pastiches that reflect post-Soviet transformations. In Kys', Moscow's concentric circles are connected to temporal cyclically, disrupting narratives of progress. In Metro 2033, the fragmentation of Moscow's metro system allows Glukhovskii to thematize the splintering of the post-Soviet city. Both novels evoke the long-standing opposition between Moscow's center and periphery but unveil the darkness of the hollow core, raising questions about the city's past, present, and future.
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