Daniil Andreyev's ideas and mythical images: Reception in works by contemporary prose writers (Yuri Arabov and Viktor Pelevin)

The present article examines intertextual references of contemporary Russian authors (1980-2020) to the late works of Daniil Andreyev (1906-1959), above all, to The Rose of the World (1950-1959). An attempt is made to show the multilevel character of Andreyev’s intertext: some modern authors consider the text of The Rose of the World as an example of spiritual and mystical literature and refer in their works to the “late” Andreyev as an authoritative Russian “visionary”. This strategy is designated in the article as esoteric apprenticeship and fits into the aesthetic attitudes of modernism. The author of the article discovers an intertext of this level in Vladimir Sorokin (b. 1955), Yuri Arabov (b. 1954), Konstantin Kedrov (b. 1942) and partly in Viktor Pelevin (b. 1962). At the same time, the apologetisation of The Rose of the World in the late works of Oleg Lukyanov (1937-1998), a Soviet science fiction writer, is not considered by the author of the article as an artistic intertext. The second level of Andreyev’s intertext is found in the works of Pelevin. This level is characterized by the consideration of The Rose of the World not only as an authoritative spiritual and mystical teaching, but also as an object of deconstruction. Postmodern aesthetic attitudes can be found in this strategy. In the opinion of the author of the article, deconstruction arises due to the fact that Andreyevs “images” (newest mythical creatures) are removed by Pelevin from the sacred context of Andreyev’s newest myth about the Rose of the World and placed in an aesthetic context. In this way, the postmodern aesthetic playing of the sacred “images” of The Rose of the World takes place. Pelevin applies this strategy in Generation P (1999). In the story “Burning Bush” from the collection Pineapple Water for the Fair Lady (2010), Pelevin adds elements of destruction to the deconstruction of the sacred “images” of the Rose of the World (in particular, the demon Gagtungr) by placing them in the context of an ironic narrative about “spiritual growth” of the main character (Semyon Levitan). Irony, grotesque, hyperbole not only destroy the sacredness of Andreyev’s demonic “image”, but also introduce carnival laughter into it. As a result of this, the monstrousness of the “image” is also subject to destruction. At the end of the article, the author comes to the conclusion that Andreyev’s intertext in Russian literature of the late 20th - early 21st centuries can be interpreted in the modernist tradition of esoteric apprenticeship and in the aspect of postmodern deconstruction. While the modernist tradition is aimed, in general, at rehabilitating of the name of the writer repressed in the middle of the 20th century and creating an esoteric aura of a spiritual “mentor” and “teacher” around him, the postmodern deconstruction is aimed at returning the phenomena of his work to the world of artistic imagery. Postmodern “enactment” causes a precedent of reversed transgression to Andreyev’s mythical world: from the latest myth into literature. The mythical creatures of Andreyev’s “transphysics”, falling into the literary context, become artistic images. The author of the article considers this fact of recurrent transgression as a positive cultural assimilation of Andreyev’s newest myth by the artistic culture of the 21st century. The poet and writer who disappeared from imaginative literature due to sociopolitical repressions regains his “metahistorical” life in it. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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