Fragile Landscape. Sacrifice of the Russian land

Abstract

   This essay analyses the individual’s alienation from the natural environment prompted by the commodification of nature. The analysis focuses on the novels “Proshchanie s Matyoroi” (Farewell to Matyora, 1976) by Valentin Rasputin and “Zona zatopleniya” (Flood Zone, 2015) by Roman Senchin and demonstrates how literature, both in the Soviet Union and in contemporary Russia, deals with the critical discourse on environmental issues, the protection of nature, human freedom, and the dignity of living beings. The two novels, written forty years apart, share the same subject: to build a hydroelectric power plant, a river is diverted from its path, vast territories are flooded, and the inhabitants of a Siberian village are be forced away from their homes. In the light of this affinity, this essay explores an eco-critical view as to how the conflict between nature and culture in Soviet and in present-day Russia can be represented through the motives of the clash between the old and the new world, civilization and wild nature, the urban and the natural environment. In particular, the two novels are linked by four cultural criteria: the mythography of a betrayed Eden, the representation of a world that offers no refuge from ecological disasters, the threat of a hegemonic oppression conducted either by the State or by powerful corporations at the expense of the local communities, and the ‘gothicization’ of the environment. Zona zatopleniyia can be read as a remake of Proshchanie s Materoi insofar as it denounces a system in which the technological innovations achieved in over half a century do not seem to be considered. At the same time, however, Senchin’s novel, starting from the end of the Soviet Union, highlights the environmental problems that have contributed to the end of the régime and suggests that old political models are no longer tenable in the new era. This starting point plays an important role for it defines nature no longer as a shelter from politics, but as a potential form of civil activity.