Totalitarian systems of the past and present: intertextual analysis of the story Al-Efesbi’s Zenithal Codes by V. Pelevin

The paper is devoted to an intertextual analysis of the story Al-Efesbi’s Zenithal Codes by V. Pelevin. The subject of the research is the revelation of the features of totalitarian societies depicted in the story under study and in the works to which the text sends. Particular attention is paid to the study of V. Pelevin’s text in the context of the antiutopian tradition: The author of the paper has found and interpreted quotations, reminiscences, allusions, linking the story «Al-Efesbi’s Zenithal Codes» with antiutopian works representing different types of totalitarian societies. Chosen as objects of comparison were the classical antiutopian texts and the texts having a bent for this genre: «We» by E. Zamyatin, «Invitation to a Beheading» by V. Nabokov, «1984» by G. Orwell, «A Steel Bird» by V. Aksenov. Pelevin depicts the protagonist’s attempts to resist the totalitarian ideology, drawing also on texts that are not directly related to the antiutopian tradition, but help him introduce the main themes of the story.

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