21st century
The 21st century: the internet shrank the world. Meaning fell apart
What happened — and why
The digital revolution and the crisis of authority
For the first time in history every person has access to all texts at once. And yet, alongside it, a growing sense of meaninglessness.
The philosophical cause
Postmodernism deconstructed all the "grand narratives." The internet gave everyone a voice, and by doing so devalued every voice.
The demand for meaning is returning: through meditation, through therapy, through a return to the classics. It is no accident that Dostoevsky and Tolstoy are back among the bestsellers.
Russian literature of the 21st century
Pelevin explores emptiness and the illusions of power. Vodolazkin returns to medieval chronicles as a way of making sense of time.
The philosophical cause
Pelevin — The Soviet experience has been digested, and distance has appeared. One can now write not as documentary but as philosophy.
Russian prose of the 21st century asks the questions the West has stopped asking: what is the soul, time, death, God.
