Katarzyna Duda

This article attempts to define the phenomenon of the fourth wave of Russian emigration in relation to writers leaving their homeland after the symbolic collapse of the USSR, or who are descendants of representatives of the third wave. The characteristics of contemporary emigration that differ from previous waves of refugees and the reasons for leaving their homeland are indicated here. The destinations of emigrants (USA, Canada, Switzerland, Israel) that shape the specifics of the mental landscape of the newcomers, the barriers, the borders that they have to overcome in order to establish good relations with the citizens of their host countries are also included. Indeed, the aim of multiculturalism is not to tear down walls, but to build bridges. In this  respect, dialogue and the associated language as a fundamental distinctive feature of culture that determines the identity of each person is of paramount importance. The current of post-memory, autobiographical and memoir literature, promoted by many emigrants, is linked to identity and its recovery. As far as young emigrants are concerned, they have to live in a global village, in a specific uniformity introduced by the 21^st century, which makes mobility one of the most important values.

There were a lot of utopian and antiutopian compositions in the XXth century. Almost all of them related to totalitarianism and people who became in danger of being arrested, tortured, killed, sentenced either to concentration camps or to special psychiatric hospitals for political prisoners called dissidents. Writers realized this  threat very quickly and began to write, strictly forbidden by the Soviet censorship, works showing the results of communistic utopia. This genre was created both by novelists living in the former USSR and these onces who were forced to emigrate. However, we have to take into account that both of them were the eye witnesses of Soviet tragedy. These writers, often much earlier than historians, proved that communistic ideology was not able to come true because it is not possible to build the paradise on the Earth. They noticed that the only aim of communistic experiment was to create completely new kind of human being – homo sovieticus – a creature which is unable to think sensibly, to reach their own decisions, to act according their own choices.
After the collapse of communism, it turned out that antiutopias did not disappear. Moreover, in modern Russia more and more compositions are published. One of them, entitled S.N.U.F.F., was written by well known worldwide writer Victor Pelevin. The main question of XXIst century antiutopia is: what people are afraid of  owadays? Pelevin tries to answer it in his novel. Modern man desires about new inventions and introducing them into our lives. The progress makes our existence easier but at the same time it may cause very dangerous changes such as globalised world where people loose their identity and experiments connected with overusing biotechnology, artificial intelligence and the new creature called homo superior.

The article presented here is a direct reference to Sergei Lebedev’s book The Limit of Forgetting, in which the author acts simultaneously as narrator and main character. The novel cannot be analysed except by deciphering the symbols accumulated in it. One of the layers of the work concerns the spiritual development of the protagonist, the impetus for which is the appearance of a demonic Second Grandfather in his childhood. Desiring to solve the mystery of the latter, the narrator reaches the world of Stalinist camps. The buildings left behind were destroyed, the perpetrators have not been brought to justice, people are more comfortable to forget about them. The protagonist, wanting to recreate the legacy of his ancestors, becomes a kind of collector: he collects objects from the past, collects memories of participants in tragic events, their diaries... In this way, the past overlaps with the present and is projected into the future. In order to cross the boundary of oblivion, it is necessary to overcome fear and conformity, learn responsibility and, using cultural memory, reach the Truth.