In this last part of our course, we will be talking about historical and neo-mythological trend in modern Russian literature, which combines realistic features in depicting history, with motives taken from mythology and folklore, legends, traditions, and rites of the peoples living in the Russian Federation. I cannot say that such mythologism is quite new. In the world literature, one can recollect James Joyce, Franz Kafka or in Russian literature we're talking about Sasha Sokolov and [inaudible] who were using myths. But as the proverb is saying, new resolvers in overlooked old and this return to the beginnings and combining the features of Pope and the like. Literature is quite significant for contemporary Russian literature. I will begin from the works of a prominent writer who can be called the founder of neo-mythological trend, Alexei Ivanov. Born in 1969. Here's one of the most prolific and popular writers of last 20 years. That cannot miss the story of his life and work of course, despite the fact that most of his works are still not translated into English for the reasons of their extreme language difficulty. Let's begin with his biography first. Alexei Ivanov was born in 1969, initially in Novgorod, but his whole life is connected with two major Ural cities, Perm and Yekaterinburg. Since his early childhood, he lives in Perm and he has been studying in the Yekaterinburg at the Ural State University. His major was initially journalism, but ultimately he got his MA in art criticism. However, Ivanov is not so much an art critic as a historian of his native Ural region, and the writer who depicts mostly history and present state of the same origin. But in the early 90s, Ivanov had debuted as a science fiction writer. Some of his early texts were published in the famous magazine, 'The Ural Pathfinder'. Magazine of science fiction of the Soviet times. Later these stories were reprinted, but they did not bring him glory. Returning to Perm from Yekaterinburg after graduation, Alexei Ivanov changed many professions and all his jobs were somehow reflected in his subsequent books. He worked as a guard, as a schoolteacher, as a journalist. He was teaching for some time at the university. But his favorite job, the one he has found himself in was that of a guide in the Perm original. He worked for the travel agency allegiance guided tours of historical site in this vast region and naturally developed passion for local history. On this cornerstone, his major novels were built later. However, before turning to the history of Perm, Ivanov has written several important works on contemporary issues. One of them is the novel with the funny title, The Geographer Drank His Globe Away, which was not very popular after its publication in 2003. But has become famous after being adopted into a movie in 2013, with the most famous Russian actor Konstantin Khabensky playing the unfortunate geography teacher, Sluzhkint. Ivanov's best novel which was originally written in the late 90s has two titles. In the first long commercial Cherdyn is the queen of the mountains. Cherdyn was a major city in this region in the Middle Ages. In a short version, it is called The Heart of Parma. Again, there was no success. Up to 2004, Ivanov remained little known outside of Perm, although The Heart of Parma was published in Moscow in the earlier 2000s, but also in small circulation. Only in 2004, 2005, when the St. Petersburg publishing house Azbuka began to promote Ivanov's novel, he was recognized not only by the book reviewers, but also by the readers all over the country. Let's talk about a little about these texts, the best of all Ivanov's writings, Parma. Parma is the title of his novel is not a city in Italy of course, but one of the synonyms to Taiga, a coniferous forest consisting of spruces and firs, which covers most part of the Perm region. This is the land of forests and rivers. There are more than 29,000 rivers with a total length of over 90,000 kilometers. It's a remote land and the hand of Moscow reached it in the 15th century. Lots of tribes with their chiefs and princes lived there in that time, and they all were polytheists. The new government met the problem of missionary work, the problem of baptism of local people. They had to convert them to Orthodoxy. Ivanov tells us the story which can remind similar stories of colonization, conversion and extermination of Native peoples all around the world, which we can find in the histories of North America, South America, Africa, South and East Asians. First of all, the local peoples of Perm willingly accept baptism and willingly join Christ to the pantheon of their gods. Later they perceive Christianity not as the only one true religion, but as one of many religions. Most people professing polytheism willingly accept foreign gods, but usually resist the affirmation of the uniqueness of one of the gods. For a phonetic missionary as Yona the bishop in Ivanov's novel, all that is certainly unacceptable and that's why Yona comes into serious conflict with the local population. The best pages of Ivanov's novel show these bishops struggle for the triumph of the Christian faith. Wanting to whip their idols, he whips his God, Jesus Christ, and then destroys pagan temples. After these events, some oddities become to happen in Ivanov's novel. Every one who breaks pagan taboos meet a terrible fate and some dies. It may be interpreted as a revenge of Mother Earth, the pagan goddess called Perkūna. That is there is a mystical extra natural plot line in the story and the novel acquires the features of fantasy. But on the other hand, the same events may be interpreted as something natural, as accidents. The strength of Ivanov's novel which distinguishes him from many popular literature writers is that he manages to balance on the verge of two explanations and two points of view: religious and scientific. It makes unique his novels and The Heart of Parma in particular. After the success of The Heart of Parma, Ivanov has accelerated his reader activity. Since then he published one or two books every year. His novel The Gold of Riot published in 2005 is devoted to the most dangerous trade, shipping iron from Ural through the Chusovaya River to Central Russia in the 18th century. The novel was published as I said in 2005. Soon Ivanov begins to collaborate with the cinema director Pavel Lungin and writes for him a screenplay for the Tsar movie about Ivan the Terrible, where Ivanov explains these Tsar's atrocities by his apocalyptic modes. This script was later converted into the novel called The Calendar According to John. Besides the movies, Ivanov is engaged in TV projects. In collaboration with the famous Russian TV journalist, Leonid Parfyonov, he has created a documentary series called the Backbone of Russia about the Ural Mountains and its history of iron plants which Ivanov perceives as a lost civilization. This civilization was created by Stroganoff and [inaudible] merchants in the 18th century. Ural's industry is mining, smelting and old hydration factories, the Pugachev rebellion. All that is Ivanov's area of interests which he knows better than anyone else. He propagates this history and culture in his projects and they are gradually becoming a new generally accepted Russian brand name. In addition, he continues to write novels. Two of them were written under a pseudonym, pen name. One of the lectures we were talking about [inaudible] and his love to the experiments with office aliases. To some extent, it is also true for Alexei Ivanov hidden under the pen name of Alexei Mavrin. He has published two novels in the Azbuka publishing house. The first one was The Dog-headed People published in 2011, and the second one, Community, published in 2012. No one knew who this Mavrin was, but nevertheless these novels were a big success and Ivanov has confirmed his reputation independently of his previous achievements. In recent years, Ivanov has published a large documentary book called The Forks, a detailed history of the Pugachev rebellion in the late 18th century in Volga and Ural regions. Following Pushkin who has written documentary, A History of Pugachev, and the novel, The Captain's Daughter, Ivanov depicts the whole history of Pugachev's riot all the towns, all the villages that met this terrible misfortune to be seized by his troops and presents a detailed historical report. Finally, his last novel is a long novel titled Tobol. This text we will discuss in more detail in the next section of this course. Thank you.
