This thesis presents a complex study of the phenomenon of the self-reflection in Russian literature of the verge of the 20th–21st centuries that is closely and systematically connected with the phenomenon of transitional thinking and style dynamics, in particular, the formation of a “new wave” and underground literature as bridges between social realism and postmodernism, the emergence and dynamism of postmodernism and the return to the rethinking of the modernist concepts.
The thesis shows how the processes of self-reflection and creative self-determination develop in diachrony and in the synchrony of creative searches at the turn of the century. It is proved that each period had its own specificity, but the focus is placed upon the dialogue with the artistic achievements of the Silver Age of Russian literature.
The processes of the literature self-reflection are examined in the light of their representation and embodiment in certain forms, that is, the resources of specific genres in this field are characterized and the very specificity of the genre genesis is revealed as a global prevailing tendency. In particular, the means of a meta-discourse modeling in an essay, synthesis of an essay, an autobiography and an aesthetic manifesto are characterized as well as the means in the lyrical self-fictional prose, the ironic postmodern novel, the biographical drama and the short story, the “nonlinear” hypertext, the “rebus novel”, the “myth novel” with the biographical subtexts.
This thesis focuses on the topical aspects of the wide literary material of the 1970s–2015s, namely the selection and characterization of artistic strategies for the literature self-reflection. Among them there are: postmodern clowning, carnival and travesty description of iconic artist’s figures, classics, in particular; the return of the undeservedly forgotten writers and their reinterpretation; the author’s myth creation, intertextuality, increased dialogicality, aesthetization and theatricalization of the artist’s figure and the creative process itself, defamiliarization, “text in the text” and “theater in the theater”.
Specific and global intentions of different periods are characterized in the work. In particular, it describes the role of literature of the 1970s-1980s in discrediting the official ideology, developing alternative guidelines for the artist’s figure and creativity and reveals the formation of a new artistic paradigm and comprehension of its parameters in the 1990s–2015s.
The research outlines the process of modeling the artist’s figure on new aesthetic principles, which includes the actualization of traditional structures, such as archetypes, myths and literary mythologems, revision and reinterpretation of iconic figures of art, testing of popular guidelines, art masks of symbolism in particular. New models of self-identification, proposed by writers on the boundary of cultural paradigms in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s–2015s are distinguished from this perspective.
A number of problems are revealed in the context of the interpretation of traditions. They are as following: the problem of works autobiographical character and self-fiction, provocative masks modeling and the “myth of literature” formation with simultaneous emphasis on the expressiveness of innovative intentions of contemporary art of words.
