«ПИСАТЬ НЕОБХОДИМО, ЖИТЬ НЕ НЕОБХОДИМО»: ЛИТЕРАТУРА И ЛИТЕРАТОРЫ КОНЦА XX — НАЧАЛА XXI В. НА СТРАНИЦАХ ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННЫХ ПРОИЗВЕДЕНИЙ ДАЛЬНЕВОСТОЧНЫХ АВТОРОВ
“IT IS NECESSARY TO WRITE, IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO LIVE”: LITERATURE AND WRITERS OF THE LATE XX — EARLY XXI CENTURIES IN THE FICTION OF THE RUSSIAN FAR EAST

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the processes of transformation in the literary sphere of the Russian Far East in the post-Soviet period. The main historical source consists of literary texts, some of which are being introduced into scholarly discourse for the first time. This experience of self-reflection — about the author of the article, colleagues, readers and modern literature — is of considerable interest for studying public life in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries from an anthropological perspective. The sources analysis shows that the enthusiasm in the writing community, generated by glasnost and the acquisition of freedom of speech, soon fades away. The federal government withdrew from the regulation ofthe literary process, and the state system of book publishing and distribution declined. Ideological censorship was actually replaced by financial one. Creative unions lost centralized funding and, as a consequence, their role in public life, gradually turning into a “dormant institution”. The authors of literary texts testify that in the 1990s serious fiction was devalued, and mass-produced fiction was widely distributed, indulging the animal instincts of the average reader. The social status of a writer fell, former privileges disappeared, professional writing became a hobby for pleasure, which led to an identity crisis. Many authors were stated to go through the transformational processes in the literary sphere with difficulty; along with adaptive mechanisms, destructive practices were also recorded in fiction. Nevertheless, literature continues to evolve, it still unites and inspires people who write, they gradually adapt to new socio-economic conditions and, despite the shrinking readership, remain committed to literature as their life's work.

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