1930s The 20th Century Russian Anti-utopian Novels Analysis

Anti-Utopian literature is a unique literary genre. It was formed and developed in 20th century as a deviation of Utopian literature. Anti-Utopian literature is a parody of Utopian literature. The latter describes for us a harmonious and happy future society and inspires people to realize this ideal destiny, while the former, on the contrary, moulds a dark, terrific world to warn the mankind that, once rationality overrides objective rules, good intentions are imposed on history, fantasy is being pursued as real target, and individual person which should be the final object to be concerned is being neglected, certain non-rational craze will appear, and utopian glory will be changed into anti-utopian terror. The Russian anti-utopian novels were formed and developed into one literature genre in the 20's and 30's of 20th century, with Zamyatin's We, Platonov's trilogy Chevengur, Kotlovan and The Sea of Youth being its representative works. What's more, anti-utopian factors in Bulgakov's The Fatal Eggs and Heart of a Dog are also noticed by some researchers. Combining with the historical background on which these works were created, this dissertation describes and explains the literary connotation of the above anti-utopian novels mainly by textual analysis. This dissertation comprises five parts. The first part is "Introduction". It describes the developing thread of Utopian thoughts and the evolution from Utopia to Anti-Utopia in the history of literature. Chapter 1 takes Zamyatin's We as its object. The criticism of the writer on the highly systematized country mode and supremacy of rationality is understood through analysis on the conflict of three pairs of concepts. Platonov's anti-utopian trilogy is the research object of Chapter 2. The characteristics of Platonov's anti-utopian novels are analyzed through the creative course of writer, the differences between the trilogy and We, and through the novel theme of seeking. Chapter 3 takes Bulgakov's novels The Fatal Eggs and Heart of a Dog as its objects. The anti-utopian features of these novels are analyzed to be "discover the unfairness and absurdity of reality through description of disaster brought by blindly use of science and technology". The last part is "Conclusion", in which the literary characteristics of Russian anti-utopian novels in 20's and 30's of 20th century are concluded.