Ideological Role and Substantive Features of Dystopian Narratives in Russian Mass Culture

Over the past few years, a fairly large number of authors have appeared (I.S. Tehlikidi, E.N. Verkin, V.O. Bogdanova, D.S. Zakharov, D.A. Danilov, Ya.M. Wagner) who use the dystopian genre for the socio-political construction of the future, and also use the methods of dystopia and heterotopia to represent modernity or certain aspects of the historical past. The article examines the evolution of the dystopian genre and the current state of this direction, the basis of which is not individual signs and distinctive features, but the concept of ‘dystopian narratives’. In the dystopias of the second decade of the 21st century, three key narratives can be distinguished: 1) adaptation of humanity to the world after a nuclear disaster, 2) digitalization of society and technologization of individual physiology; 2) the strengthening of non-Western political regimes and the collapse of the unipolar world. Thanks to the convergence of contemporary works of art, as well as the active interest of Russian publishing houses, through promotion through traditional media and digital platforms, authors have the opportunity to shape the cultural identity of their readers, as well as influence the perception of modernity. In this model, the reader, thanks to decoding the sign systems of a work of art, creates his own “average version”, which can claim to be both an individual and mass political ideology.

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