THE POETIC OF ANTI-UTOPIA IN THE WORKS OF YURII VYNNYCHUK («WELCOME TO SHCHUROGRAD») AND ADOLFO BІOI CASARES («DIARY OF THE WAR WITH PIGS»)

Abstract

The article examines the poetic features of the dystopia genre on the basis of Y. Vynnychuk’s story «Welcome to Shchurograd» and Adolfo Bioy Casares’ novel «The Diary of a War with Pigs». It turns out that the narrative in dystopia is most often constructed in the form of a diary, however, «distinguishing this characteristic» (S. Shishkina) is not mandatory. This is evidenced by the works of Y. Vynnychuk and Adolfo Bioy Casares, in which the conventional diary form prevails. Artistic time as one of the main plot and genre-forming elements in the works of domestic and Latin American authors is realized with the help of the conditional present, and space in the texts performs the main function of depersonalization of the individual, although among the massively depersonalized residents of the city of Shchurograd and the Latin American town there are those who strive to resist the totalitarian system . Heroes in dystopias are lone rebels opposed to the government. In the story «Welcome to Shchurograd», the rebel is a colonel, a resident of the city of Shchurograd, and in the novel «Diary of the War with Pigs», the conditional «rebel» is an old pensioner named Isidoro Vidal / Don Isidoro. In the works of Y. Vynnychuk and Adolfo Bioy Casares, we find effective mechanisms for supporting a totalitarian state: dictatorship, propaganda, changing the historical narrative, building new myths, seizing the spiritual sphere, isolation from the outside world, sympathy. The main mechanism for supporting the vital activity of the system is the reformatting of a new generation that wholeheartedly supports totalitarian ideology. Violence is an integral part of the totalitarian system, which is why in Adolfo Bioy Casares’s novel «Diary of the War with Pigs» young people kill the old with impunity, and in Yu. Vynnychuk’s «Welcome to Shchurograd» the disobedient are sent to an insane asylum and human rats are created. Despite total control, hidden resistance to the total system always exists. Accordingly, the destruction of the system is a matter of time. In the novel by Adolfo Bioy Casares, the murders of old people stopped suddenly without explanation, which is uncharacteristic of dystopias, and in Yu. Vynnychuk’s the ending is open. Such developments hint at the possibility of the revival of totalitarianism.