The Third Rome

dystopia and archaism as history of the present in Victor Pelevin’s Journey to Eleusis

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.60056/CCL.2024..141-154

Keywords:

Russian dystopian literature, 21th century, archaism, retro-dystopia, The Third Rome, Victor Pelevin

Abstract

This article is an introduction to the close reading of Victor Pelevin’s novel Journey to Eleusis (2023) as a paradigmatical example of the Russian dystopian literature from the beginning of the 21th century. Journey to Eleusis is the final part of a trilogy whose previous installments include the collection of short novels Transhumanism Inc. (2021) that set the dystopian universe, and the sequel KGBT+ (2022) taking place already in the wartime sociopolitical reality. I argue that starting with Vladimir Sorokin’s Blue Lard (1999) the contemporary Russian dystopia intertwines idiosyncratically futurism and archaism into a retro-dystopian frame, which I discern in Pelevin’s trilogy. As I view it, this specific dystopian blend aims at the representation of a history of the present of the Putin era with its neo-totalitarian version of the Russian imperial concept of the “Third Rome” which is crucial to Journey to Eleusis.

Author Biography

  • Vladimir Sabourin, University of Veliko Tarnovo “St. St. Cyril and Methodius”

    Vladimir Sabourin  (1967, Santiago de Cuba) is a poet, literary critic and translator. He has defended a PhD thesis on Introduction to Metalanguage of Humboldt’s Philosophy of Language (1994). He became associate professor with the monograph The Origin of the Spanish Picaresque Novel: The Genealogy of Realism (2006). He is a Doctor of Philological Sciences (2010) with the dissertation Mystique and Modernity. The Spanish Catholic Mystique of the Golden Age. He is currently Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Veliko Tarnovo “St. St. Cyril and Methodius”.

References

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Published

2025-11-06

Issue

Vol. 10 (2024)

Section

I. Dystopia Traditions, Genre Dynamics, Directions of Transformation

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How to Cite

The Third Rome: dystopia and archaism as history of the present in Victor Pelevin’s Journey to Eleusis. (2025). Colloquia Comparativa Litterarum, 10, 141-154. https://doi.org/10.60056/CCL.2024..141-154