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Abstract: The article analyzes a little-known literary work by D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak – his Christmas fantasy “The Last Lights” (1897). This work is considered in a broad context of the “Christmas” narrative of the writer, covering, in total, about three dozen texts, most of which have characteristic genre nominations: “Christmas story”, “Christmas tale”, “Christmas fantasy”, and “legend”. At the same time, special attention is paid to the context of the author’s collection-cycle “Christmas Stories” (1898) and the text of the Christmas fantasy “Iyi” (1902). It is noted that in connection with the stable genre stereotype, in most of the Christmas stories of Mamin-Sibiryak (“Kum”, “Christmas Eve”, “The Cunning German”, “The Song of Mister Kal”, etc.), it is the utopian mode of the historical future that is emphasized, which implies the triumph of moral and religious values inherent in Christianity. In contrast to the dominant utopian beginning of the Christmas story, the writer in “The Last Lights” creates a kind of “inside-out utopia” (N. K. Mikhailovsky), following a pronounced anti-utopian course. A variant of his Christmas fantasy is regarded as an individual authored experience of artistic futurology, containing a spiritual and religious justification for the reasons of the decline of the European civilization – up to the ideas of national disunity, the destructive power of militarism and panmongolism, as well as the degeneration of the European race, the consequences of birth control and the use of the principles of Eugenics social practice. The genre-compositional form of “The Last Lights” is defined as a philosophical fragment that serves to express clearly stated anti-utopian content. In this regard, the article draws intertextual parallels with the anti-utopias “The Last Suicide” and “Cecilia” by V. F. Odoevsky, “A Brief Tale of the Antichrist” by V. S. Solovyov, as well as pictures of dreams about the “golden age” in the works of F. M. Dostoevsky (“Crime and Punishment”, “Idiot”, “Dream of a Ridiculous Man”). At the end of the article, it is concluded that Mamin-Sibiryak’s “Christmas” narrative actively developed the method of “inspired realism” designated by the writer himself, which involved the use of certain neo-romantic and symbolist tendencies, including a creative focus on the genre of parables, fairy tales and legends.

About the author(s) :

Оleg V. Zyryanov
Ural Federal University named after the First President of Russia B. N. Yeltsin
(Ekaterinburg, Russia)
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3327-8116

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 27.02.2023; date of publication: 30.03.2023

References:

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