Judging Emptiness: Reflections on the Post-Soviet Aesthetics and Ethics of Viktor Pelevin's &Chachek;apaev i Pustota
Evgeny
Pavlov
The paper examines Viktor Pelevin's bestselling novel Chapaev
i Pustota (1996) in the context of its reception by the
post-Soviet critical establishment. Russian critics' symptomatic
labelling of the novel as escapist suggests the need to focus on the
ethical implications of the author's quasi-Buddhist engagement with
emptiness. The paper argues that the ethics of the novel cannot be
distilled either from its protagonist's aesthetic quest or from the
fable of Zen enlightenment he eventually undergoes. Pelevin's novel
set in absolute emptiness
targets the presentability of
the absolute while affirming pustota as the blissful true nature of
any existence. Therefore, the remarkable positive programme of this
text (including all attendant ethical consequences) should not be
thought of separately from Pelevin's postmodern critique of
representation.