Mimesis The Literature of the Soviet Avant-garde

The politics of literature in the construction of worlds

The Russian Revolution was a literary as well as political upheaval. With a focus on the revolutionary works of Andrei Platonov and the futurist collective Oberiu, leading Russian literary thinker Valery Podoroga shows how profoundly the Soviet experiment overturned the traditional expectations of fiction and poetry. The production of this groundbreaking new work was inextricably interwoven with the political and historical debates of the time.

This volume expands on Podoroga’s critical exploration of the analytic anthropology of literature. Here he delves into the ways literature can be used in ‘world-building’, both in terms of what happens inside the narrative and how it reflects the external world. He explores the function of the work outside of its time: both as a means to project itself into the future and as a document of a former age. How are we to read the past through these works of the imagination?

With an introductory essay from the author’s daughter, Ioulia Podoroga.

Valery Podoroga was born in Moscow in 1946 and was a leading figure at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Science until his death in 2020. With a particular focus on 19th century Russian literature he developed his thesis of Analytic Anthropology. The author of over 200 articles and ten monographs, he was award the prestigious Andrei Bely Prize for literature in 2001.

Introduction: The Analytical Anthropology of Literature by Ioulia Podoroga


PART I. Eunuch of the Soul
Introduction: Homo ex machina
1 Positions of Reading
2 History as Nature
3 The Inventor of Machines


PART II. The Fainting of the World
Introduction: Fear of High Noon
1 Alea: A General Theory of Chance
2 Reverse Rotation
3 Conversations: A Community of Friends in Time