CONTEMPORARY RUSSIAN PROSE: IN SEARCH OF A NEW HERO

Jizzakh State Pedagogical University

Faculty of Philology

Major: Russian Language and Literature, Student of Group 723-24

Kobulova Madina

Abstract: This paper examines the problem of finding a new hero in contemporary Russian prose of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The characteristic features of the central characters in works by leading authors of the period — Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Zakhar Prilepin, Viktor Pelevin, and Mikhail Shishkin — are analysed. Special attention is paid to the transformation of the hero’s image in the post-Soviet context, the loss of traditional value orientations, and the search for a new identity. The paper concludes that contemporary Russian prose reflects the spiritual and moral aspirations of society, offering a diversity of heroes, each of whom answers the question of the meaning of life in their own way.

Keywords: contemporary Russian prose, new hero, post-Soviet literature, character image, moral quest, identity, value orientations.

Main Body

Contemporary Russian prose occupies a special place in the global literary process. Shaped by the conditions of fundamental historical change — the collapse of the Soviet Union, the reassessment of national identity, and the rapid entry into an era of globalisation — it set itself fundamentally new artistic tasks. One of the most central among these was the question of the hero: who is he, the person of the new era? What values guide him? Is he capable of a genuine moral choice?

The study of this question is particularly relevant, since literature has always responded keenly to the demands of the age, offering readers models for reflection and spiritual orientation. Unlike Soviet literature, which imposed strict requirements upon the ‘positive hero’, prose of the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries rejects a single canon, granting the reader the right to judge the moral standing of characters for themselves.

Among the authors who have most vividly reflected the search for a new hero are Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Zakhar Prilepin, Viktor Pelevin, and Mikhail Shishkin. Each offers their own vision of the modern person, their place in society and their inner world. The heroes of Lyudmila Ulitskaya are people immersed in the world of private life, family relationships, and moral dilemmas. In the novels The Kukotsky Enigma (2001) and Daniel Stein, Interpreter (2006), the writer creates images of people seeking spiritual support amidst historical catastrophes. Her heroes are imperfect and contradictory, but it is precisely this that makes them vivid and recognisable. Ulitskaya affirms the value of ordinary human life as such, without grand declarations or ideological programmes.

Zakhar Prilepin, in his novel Sankya (2006), turns to the image of a young man seized by a thirst for action and a search for meaning in radical political protest. His hero is a product of an era of social disillusionment — stripped of former reference points and attempting to create new ones. Prilepin raises pointed questions about the relationship between the personal and the historical, and about the limits of what is permissible in the struggle for one’s convictions.

Viktor Pelevin chooses the path of postmodernist irony and mythologisation. His heroes — from Generation ‘P’ (1999) and Buddha’s Little Finger (1996) — exist in a space of simulacra, where reality is replaced by media images and advertising constructs. The search for a genuine ‘self’ becomes for them a quest through a labyrinth of illusions. Pelevin shows how consumer civilisation destroys the individual, reducing a person to a set of clichés.

Mikhail Shishkin, in his novels The Taking of Izmail (2000) and Maidenhair (2010), explores the possibilities of language as the last refuge from chaos. His heroes find themselves through the word — through the attempt to describe and thereby hold onto a reality that is slipping away. Time and memory become the key categories in his artistic world.

Thus, contemporary Russian prose does not offer a single model of the ‘new hero’, but it is precisely this diversity that constitutes its value. The heroes of Ulitskaya, Prilepin, Pelevin, and Shishkin are different answers to the same questions: who to be, how to live, what to believe in. Literature fulfils its eternal function — it helps a person to make sense of themselves and their time.

Conclusion

In the course of the study conducted, it was established that contemporary Russian prose of the late 20th and early 21st centuries actively participates in the process of forming new cultural and moral orientations. Analysis of works by L. Ulitskaya, Z. Prilepin, V. Pelevin, and M. Shishkin showed that the image of the hero in post-Soviet literature undergoes a profound transformation: the place of the monolithic ‘positive hero’ is taken by a contradictory, searching person who has frequently lost former values but has not ceased their spiritual quest.

The particular significance of contemporary prose lies in its capacity to reflect honestly, without embellishment, the reality of a transitional time. Themes of the loss of identity, existential loneliness, and the search for meaning in a world without ready-made answers prove to be close to a broad readership — primarily young people facing the same questions.

At the same time, the study showed that, for all the diversity of artistic strategies, contemporary authors remain faithful to the humanist tradition of Russian classical literature: at the centre of their attention is the person, their inner world, their capacity for compassion and moral choice. This allows us to assert that contemporary Russian prose does not break with the great literary tradition but continues it under new historical conditions.

References

• Ulitskaya, L.E. The Kukotsky Enigma. — Moscow: Eksmo, 2001. — 448 p.
• Prilepin, Z. Sankya. — Moscow: Ad Marginem, 2006. — 352 p.
• Pelevin, V.O. Generation ‘P’. — Moscow: Vagrius, 1999. — 303 p.
• Shishkin, M.P. Maidenhair. — Moscow: AST, 2010. — 352 p.
• Nefagina, G.L. Russian Prose of the Late 20th Century. — Moscow: Flinta, 2003. — 320 p.
• Leiderman, N.L., Lipovetsky, M.N. Contemporary Russian Literature: In 3 vols. — Moscow: Akademiya, 2001. — Vol. 3. — 256 p.
• Chuprinin, S.I. Russian Literature Today: Life by Concepts. — Moscow: Vremya, 2007. — 768 p.

Self-searching

He wandered lost, still searching for his soul,

Like one gone mad who’s lost his path and way.

His words can’t reach the depth he can’t control,

Like moths that play with fire and fade away.

Perhaps he’s lost within the mist so wide,

Or in the desert, weak and left alone.

Though truth within his heart he cannot hide,

No strength remains to take a step alone.

Did he go wrong along the roads he chose,

Or dreams misguided led his steps astray?

Or does he wonder, no one truly knows,

Why he has spent his precious life this way?

Perhaps he’ll write his story once again,

As if he sees the world for the first time.

He’ll paint each page with care, again and then,

Like writing on white paper, line by line.

He stands between two paths, unsure which way,

Tired of restless storms he feels inside.

Perhaps his place is somewhere far away,

Though still his heart has chosen here to bide.

O youth, awaken—do not drift too long,

Protect your heart, keep it both pure and strong.

When life confronts you, stand your ground, be strong,

For you are human—rise where you belong.

My name is Tursunova Mehrinoz Oybek qizi. I was born on February 28, 2005, in Andijan region. Currently, I am a third-year student at Andijan State Pedagogical Institute. I chose primary education because I enjoy working with children.

My favorite activities are reading books and learning languages. At the moment, I work as a Turkish language teacher. In my free time, I enjoy writing poems.

The Tongue of Pain

As an old proverb used to say:

“The dogs will bark — the caravan finds its way.”

The fault’s not theirs, don’t place the blame,

They bark along the road the same.

To stand up right is never light,

The world will push with all its might.

If fortune smiles and lifts you high,

They wound your heart and pass you by.

If you succeed, their faces fall,

In envy’s poison, trapped they crawl.

They whisper lies, both harsh and wild,

With tongues that stretch a mile and piled.

They bark and bark till they grow weak,

Then chase again the ones they seek.

No rest they find, no peace inside,

Still running with their wounded pride.

As Abdulla Oripov once wrote in pain:

“May grief not burn your soul in vain…

Yet bitterness will make you cry,

When caravans pass barking by.”

Xasanova Aziza Kumushbek qizi Uzbekistan 

“I charge.”-Willem Dafoe.

The strangest thing about Willem Dafoe’s career is not that he played Jesus Christ once. It’s that he played Jesus only once. A brief clerical malfunction in the casting universe, immediately corrected by returning him to his usual rotation of characters who look like they’ve been living on a steady diet of dust, nicotine, unresolved sexual tension and built up flatus.

Nothing from the Christ role appears to have adhered. No trace of grace. No residual compassion. Not even the faintest aftertaste of “love one another.”

When I asked him for an interview, the man who once overturned the moneychangers’ tables responded with the charm of a sun‑bleached parking citation:

“I charge.”

Three words. Dry as chalk. Delivered with the affect of someone who has spent his entire career speaking from the shadows of graffiti-scrawled industrial stairwells.

This would have been unremarkable if I hadn’t spent years in the company of people whose cultural mass makes Dafoe’s filmography look like a series of public‑service announcements about dehydration. Lemmy offered me cigarettes on his hotel bed. Katherine MacGregor, not an interview subject but a personal friend, took me to Amadeus in her Mercedes and explained the film with the precision of a woman who had outlived several artistic epochs. Caroline Munro had lunch with me in London. Gitane DeMone shared a meal; Tairrie B. Murphy gave me a squeezy hug after a long interview at a Hollywood Starbucks. Ellyn Maybe once talked with me on Zoom for nearly ten hours without implying that the meter was running. Tom Sullivan, Iris Berry, Ellyn Maybe, Pleasant Gehman, Militia Vox, Valor Kand, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Amélie Frank, John Shirley—all of them managed to speak without attaching a price tag to the act of being alive.

None of them ever said, “I charge.” They had no need to.

Dafoe’s line didn’t offend me; then again, I am neither innocent nor naive. Of course he isn’t Jesus. He’s an actor who essayed that role once. At the same time, it amplified an extraordinary reality…everything before and after fits neatly into a narrow emotional climate: dimly lit, vaguely threatening, and fundamentally transactional.

At some point, the absurdity staged itself. I imagined a biblical marketplace, the kind with dust that has given up on kinetic movement.

Dafoe‑Jesus emerges, robes hanging like fabric that has never known water, eyes carrying the same parched intensity he brings to every role that isn’t Christ. He approaches with the solemnity of a man about to deliver a parable, then leans in and mutters, “You want an interview? That’ll cost you.” Salvation as a side hustle.

He adjusts his crown of thorns with the same energy as a man straightening a hat he found in a gutter and begins explaining that miracles incur overhead, that loaves and fishes do not multiply themselves, that the Sermon on the Mount comes with a mount fee.

The disciples stand behind him like dehydrated stagehands—Peter attempting authority, Judas calculating percentages, Thomas deciding whether to doubt the whole thing or request documentation.

I mention Lemmy, Betty White, Katherine MacGregor, Caroline Munro, Gitane, Tairrie, Ellyn’s ten‑hour conversation, the thousands I’ve been paid for my work. He listens without absorbing anything, then shrugs with the resignation of someone who has never portrayed a character capable of hydration. “I’m not them,” he says. “I’m working here.”

He produces a battered invoice tablet from somewhere in his robe—an object that looks like it has survived several droughts—and begins itemizing a charge for “spiritual consultation.” After a long pause, he pockets it again and says, “Fine. This one’s on the house. Don’t tell the Pharisees.”

Then he disappears into the crowd, back into the role he never stops playing: a man who looks like he’s about to ask if you’re finished with that cigarette.

The only miracle he performed was waiving his own fee. Those two words were the only free performance I was ever going to get, and they conveyed everything necessary.

Sewer Statue

Like a cast bronze statue

of an American allegator

emerging from the depths

of a metropolitan sewer,

my spirit materializes

from dank storm drains

committed to memory

and mischief, seeking

a response to absurd

allegiances, ridiculous norms

and would-be leaders’

relentless self-service

and childish rants.

Come rise, come rise,

come rise we all now

step beyond fields

of square marble tiles

that reaffirm conformity

and inspire superstition

amongst people who

dare to step on cracks

established, break molds,

and create human flocks

as devoted to tomfoolery as

they are to tucking sheets

without questions.

*****************************************

Murmuration

Coal black plumage on sabbatical

between spiritual and living worlds

ordinary yet mystical blackbirds

guided me away from gravesides

where I’d grown accustomed to tossing

handfuls of dirt onto coffins lowered

into burial holes, endeavoring to maintain

a stout face, warm heart, and reverent mind

as I paid last respects for people I’d lost

and those with dance cards to death’s final waltz.

Ebon speckled clouds lit up the skies

as the blackbirds moved between worlds

like holy ravens imparting omens,

plucking seeds from towering sunflowers,

spreading feathery imas—divine inspiration—

from the tips of their wings and naked beaks;

their melodious harmonies masked oracles

yet delighted my ears which eagerly absorbed

each mystical note, yet avoided eye contact

as tricksters’ shared sacred songs and healed.

*****************************************

Recycling

Like a frustrated mongoose

my USB-C iPhone plug cries out

refusing to recharge as waste paper

burst into flames and plastic endures.

Recycling chewing gum

by crafting teeth-marked chaws—

green, pink, yellow, blue, red,

orange, and purple lumps–

has changed; those days

of sticking it beneath chairs

came and went creative minds

into spearmint ashtrays,

cinnamon door stops,

and licorice paperweights.

I weigh my limited options

in a throwaway culture given to comfort.

seduced by streaming influencers.

mesmerized by celebrity.

*****************************************

Sin Salida Real

Dude ranch entrance signs promise

magical gateways—city slicker portals—

old west access to fatigued quarter horses

or docile mares along hoof hardened trails

each path an exit from the familiar

to an exotic, rugged thoroughfare

showcasing alien pastoral images

teasing one’s sight with kodak color

as the overwhelming scent of sapphire

orchards, blue moon wisteria,

dry eucalyptus, and lavender bundles

fill starved lungs with an ineffable

fragrance distilled in nature’s garden.

True, yes true! Ranch guests exercised

their olfactory senses in big city bellies

breathing in smog, choaking on smoke

inhaling car exhaust like unrefined narcotics

provided means and ends for many metropolitans

working where glass and steel structures

solemnly shaded select sidewalks 

at the whim of municipal planners,

free parking spots existed in memory,

as angry voices merged with the sound

of car horns, street minstrels and traffic.

Back at the dude ranch, city dwellers

reveled in roleplay, scraping horse shit

off of highly polished cowboy boots

shouting like fools as they attempt

to rope calves in small wooden corrals

answerable to no one but themselves

until country trysts and make believe

scenarios confuse dissembling with escape

exits beget entrances, portals lead to prisons.

*****************************************

Manatee Musings

For Anne Waldman

I

heard

Anne Waldman, called

Ginsburg’s spiritual wife,

her Angel Hair Anthology—

The Howl’s first cousin,

restlessly tranquil,

Buddha’s loins

issue a bold lineage,

a priceless odyssey

through light and shadow,

Outriders rocking on edges

of “The Jack Kerouac School

of Disembodied Poetics,”

meditation’s soft underbelly,

a manatee reminder.

Waldman’s soul revisits humanity,

encourages disparate voices:

unchecked,

uncensored,

unimpeded,

unconstrained,

responds to diaspora’s

social signals,

communities under siege,

Rupert Murdock’s minions

mind-numbing brainwash

of twisted truths, invented factoids,

political assignations.

Sing on like the manatee,

Anne, sing on.

A Washington-based author, poet, educator, and Pushcart Nominee, Sterling Warner’s works have appeared in such literary magazines, journals, and anthologies The Raven’s Perch, Lothlórien Poetry Journal, Ekphrastic Journal Review, Bewildering Stories, and Verse-Virtual. Warner has written over a dozen volumes of poetry/fiction including Without Wheels, ShadowCat, Edges, Memento Mori, Serpent’s Tooth, Flytraps: Poems, Cracks of Light: Pandemic Poetry & Fiction, Halcyon Days: Collected Fibonacci, Abraxas, Gunills’s, Garden: Poetry, Seaboard Magic (2026)—as well as Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories.  He currently writes, hosts “virtual” poetry/fiction readings, turns wood, and enjoys fishing and boating along the Hood Canal.

A Thousand Winters to Summer

by Jacques Fleury 

             As I walked the streets
   Winter underneath my feet
With lingering thoughts
Like past lives incomplete
With beauty hidden underneath my tongue
With dreams as green as my mother’s thumb
I kneel at God’s feet
My breath incomplete
Like a secret defeat
Futility dancing to tomorrow’s beat
Vivid notions to deceit
Dragging in the heart of the midday hour
Stressing the sun’s smirk
Watching winter’s
Swoon…
Then comes summer
          As crescent as candid as the moon
        Like the morning soon
    Creeps out of its cocoon…

Jacques Fleury is a Boston Globe featured Haitian American Poet, Educator, Author of four books and literary arts student at Harvard University online. His latest publication “You Are Enough: The Journey to Accepting Your Authentic Self” & other titles are available at all Boston Public Libraries, the University of Massachusetts Healey Library, University of Wyoming, Askews and Holts Library Services in the United Kingdom, The Harvard Book Store, The Grolier Poetry Bookshop, Amazon etc… He has been published in prestigious publications such as Spirit of Change Magazine, Wilderness House Literary Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, Litterateur Redefining World anthologies out of India, Poets Reading the News, the Cornell University Press anthology Class Lives: Stories from Our Economic Divide, Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene among others…Visit him at:  http://www.authorsden.com/jacquesfleury.–

Some people consider that individuals are not exercising currently, however they realize it is positive for their well-being.

To begin with, the issue can be attributed to a number of different factors. Chief among the primary causes would be how busy we are. Many people work long hours in the office because of much data and manage extra digital technologies, which is why they do not find leisure time to exercise. Furthermore, this happens among students who are busy with house chores and homework. In addition, some people consume diet dishes as vegetarians and think diet is enough and that they don’t have to exercise. However, exercise is still important, even for them.

Nevertheless, some feasible measures could be adopted to tackle the problems described above. The first possible measure to address this issue would be organized competitions with prizes given by the government as a way for them to help every person. Moreover, employees of the council should set up sports matches among the adults and old people. Playing football or volleyball could bring people together. Another plausible way to mitigate the issue might be that the regime should restrict private cars instead of bicycles. Communicate to the public that using bicycles as convenience transport on the ground will not only give much profit to humans but will also help with reducing air pollution in the environment. In fact, if a person cycles every day to work, they will benefit their heart and lungs.

To sum up, the above – mentioned facts have outlined the reasons for as well as the impacts of this problem. This is a complex matter which can hardly be solved in the short term. However, if the above – mentioned measures are well implemented, it is likely that this problem can be overcome.

My name is Yayra Erkin qizi Bo‘riyeva. I was born on September 14, 2007, in the G‘uzor district of the Qashkadarya region.

I am currently a dedicated and motivated student with a strong interest in personal and academic development. I hold a B2 level certificate in English, which reflects my ability to communicate effectively in both written and spoken forms.

In addition, I participated in the “Yosh Kitobxon” competition, where I achieved a score of 2, demonstrating my interest in reading and literature. I am eager to further improve my skills, expand my knowledge, and actively contribute to any academic or professional environment I become part of.