Christian physicality in Elena Khayetskaya’s gothic novel “The flying Tekla”

Annotation

The paper focuses on the central place of physicality in the formation of sociality in the fantasy story of the Russian writer Elena Khayetskaya “The Flying Tekla” (2007). The story belongs to the Russian historiosophical literature of the turn of the XX–XXI centuries and is based on playing the genre of the Gothic novel. The understanding of Russian history in the story takes place in three contexts: the Messianic depicts a post-apocalyptic world, the civilizational shows the interaction of empire and organic nations, the cultural way of life is understood as initiation. The Christian anthropology of the story substantiates the social structure of the empire, and organic nations are shown as self-destructive communities. The Roman Empire, which includes the Ardennes Forest, symbolizes Russia, which is restoring statehood after historical catastrophes based on the Christian understanding of corporeality.

Keywords

Russian literature, post-apocalypse, myth of history, Gothic novel, physicality, Elena Khayetskaya.

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