Search

Bystrenkov D.L., Kazakov A.A. Shaping of the genre canon of the dystopian novel in the novel by E. I. Zamyatin “We” against the background of the historical and literary quest of the era and the internal laws of the evolution of the novel form. Tomsk State Pedagogical University Bulletin. 2024. Issue 3 (233). P. 123-130

In modern literary criticism, no one doubts the special role of the novel by E. I. Zamyatin “We” in the dystopian literary tradition. Among the illustrative studies on the topic, we mention S. S. Romanov, who determines why the appearance of the novel “We” “marked a new stage in the development of anti-utopianism, and its author was recognized as the first classic of the genre.”This article proposes to consider the named work not only in the aspect of its direct historical and literary factuality, but to study the hidden patterns of the literary process and the mechanisms of the evolution of genre forms that have developed at the junction of the novel form and the (anti) utopian model of reality. As follows from the results of the study, the key role in these processes of the novel by E.I. Zamyatin’s “We” is determined precisely by the fact that there is a connection and complete merging of the utopian and dystopian concepts with the novel form and the formation of the genre canon of the dystopian novel. At the same time, previous significant appeals to the utopian or dystopian (by F. M. Dostoevsky, H. Wells or in Russian religious philosophy at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries) do not create such a special genre subtype of the novel, and subsequent appeals to the problem by A. P. Platonov, O. Huxley, J. Orwell, R. Bradbury and others directly or indirectly rely on Zamyatin’s canon of form.

Keywords: utopia, dystopia, novel, genre canon

Kazakov A.A., Evgrafova K.Y. The Problem of Genre Continuity of Works on a University Theme from "Campus Novel" to "Dark Academia". Tomsk State Pedagogical University Bulletin. 2026. Issue 4 (246). P. 87-95

The dark academy novel of the 2000s–2020s draws its genre inspiration from the campus novel of the 1950s–1990s. However, these subgenres are in some ways opposed. This article analyzes the similarities and differences between the "dark academy" and the campus (university, academic) novel. The goal of this study is to identify the logic of the transition from one genre form to the other. The similarities between the two stages of understanding the university theme include, firstly, the commonality of life material; secondly, the abundance of cultural and symbolic allusions and the assumed readiness of the reader (he should be from the scientific and educational environment); thirdly, the artistic study of stereotyped and role-based behavior (the eccentric scientist and other stereotypes); fourthly, the isolation of the university environment ("a small world"); fifthly, the idea of aristocracy, the exclusivity of representatives of this world – and ironic doubt in this; sixthly, the flavor of mystery, of hidden knowledge. At the same time, these stages of artistic embodiment of the university theme are very different, sometimes even opposing. In the classic university novel, we see a serious, realistic study of the socio-psychological, historical-cultural, and sometimes political problems of the university environment (elements of irony and parody also serve important purposes, such as satire). In the "dark academy," entertainment in the spirit of popular culture reigns supreme, substituting and weakening pressing life problems and the demands of adult responsibility, offering a respite from the above-mentioned. The first stage of the genre's tradition was dominated by the notion of a lofty mission for university life, closed ("secret") to the outside world, complicated by questions about the possible illusory nature of this mission or the hero's weakness and inadequacy for the lofty cause. In contemporary prose, instead, a playful assumption about the sinister, conspiratorial underbelly of the closed university world is realized, tinged with a dark, gothic flavor. The article shows that this opposition is relative and becomes possible on the basis of a deep kinship, due to a significant change in emphasis in common denominators (the concepts of template and mystery).

Keywords: Campus novel, University novel, Dark academia, genre continuity, Academic novel, Genre poetics of modern literature, English-American prose, John Edward Williams, “Stoner”, Donna Louise Tartt, “The Secret History”