Mirages and phobias of Modernity. The principal subject of O. Slavnikova’s prose

Abstract

The article analyzes the principles behind the dominant subject of O. Slavnikova’s books, which relies on a flexible scheme built from several recurrent motifs and examines the relationship between talent and fate, the latter understood as an unplanned course of events. Invading the character’s plans, fate forces an ordeal on its victim, often subduing them completely and toying with them capriciously. It acts through a double (often a grotesque copy of the protagonist), destined to ruin the original. In a world of reflections and distorted mirrors, a person is split up into a myriad of invariants, no longer able to distinguish the truth. Slavnikova’s novels also feature a special type of character: an unconventional (gifted/strange) person in imposed circumstances, normally deprived of freedom of choice because life seems to be guided from above, with any action requiring fate’s ‘authorization’. On the whole, the dominant plotline reveals contemporary individual fears and challenges which define the way of life in Slavnikova’s creative universe.