Time recovered: Kirill Ryabov and metamodernism

Abstract

Following an analysis of Kirill Ryabov’s works published in the years 2021 and 2022, the author finds that in Ryabov’s metamodernist aesthetic paradigm the modernist communicative model is preserved alongside some concepts of postmodernist aesthetics. Modernism, postmodernism and metamodernism appear as three stages of the single itinerary with a goal of overcoming the logic of binary oppositions and achieving heteroglossia and dialogue (M. Bakhtin) as a new artistic structure. Through the re-introduction of the depth of emotion and the humanistic dimension, metamodernism strives to comprehend the systemic integrity of the universe. The same agenda characterises Ryabov’s books which show people in their systemic relationships with their own egos, society, the world, and God. The aesthetics of Ryabov’s metamodernist text is defined by such parameters as the abandonment of a clearcut opinion of the author or the protagonist in favour of a dialogue with the reader, reliance on a myth, the concept of a ‘void,’ minimalism, experimentation with the word’s inner form, and the use of mass literature techniques.