TWO POST-SOVIET WOMEN WRITERS ON THE BUILDING UP AND COLLAPSE OF “THE GREAT UTOPIA”

Abstract

The study analyses two contemporary novels from the Russian cultural sphere “Second-hand Time” by Svetlana Alexievich and “The Women of Lazarus” by Marina Stepnova. The study focuses on how present day narrative relates to the events of the present and the recent past. Its greatest concern is to see what the analysed works reveal: has the twentieth-century social utopia which had transformed the whole of Eastern Europe disappeared without a trace? It also seeks an answer to the question whether it is referential writing or fiction that can better grasp the essence of the era.