Fantasy, Women’s Detective Story and Alternate History Time-Travel as a Literary Response to Post-Soviet Trauma

This article aims to analyse how Russian culture and, more specifically, Russian literature, has addressed post-Soviet trauma; while recently the trauma itself has become object of intense studies, hereby a more complex approach is implied. I will try to show how three of the most popular mass literature (formulaic) genres in contemporary Russia – fantasy, zhenskii detektiv (women’s detective story) and popadanchestvo (alternate history time-travel) – have been modelled through the impact of post-Soviet trauma after 1991. Each of these genres has its traditional formula and a specific reference reader group, whence the diversity of mechanisms used in an attempt to cure the trauma through literary texts. Fantasy and alternate history time-travel work with the past, imaginary or real, and propose its extrapolation to the future, while women’s detective lives in presentand categorises the surrounding post-Soviet reality, functioning as a useful handbook for the reader. Consequently, while fantasy and alternate history seek to deceive post-Soviet trauma but fail to overcome it, women’s detective story succeeds in getting over the traumatic experience