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Published: 2023-06-11
No. 2 (182) (2023)

The issue of dehumanization in the virtual text of the latest Russian dram

Maciej Pieczyński Logo ORCID
Section: Artykuły
https://doi.org/10.31261/pr.14975

Abstract

Post-Soviet Russian-language dramaturgy is text-centric and literature-centric. The most important point of reference for its creators is the widely understood text. Both literary and cultural text. In their works, playwrights replace performative representation with retrospective storytelling. The center of interest is not so much the surrounding reality as its cultural image. In recent years, this image has become more and more virtual. Dramaturgy willingly uses information technology. Dialogues resemble online chats, and the characters' relationships evoke associations with contact maintained via social networking sites. The reduction of the presented world to the level of virtual space results in the degradation of humanity. The protagonist of a contemporary drama, immersed in the space of the Internet, loses contact with the world around him. This in turn leads either to a complete demoralization, or even to a complete dehumanization. In the discussed texts, man becomes his own digital simulacrum. Dehumanization is either literal or metaphorical. In the first case, the hero either loses his human nature or is not human at all. He ends up in the virtual world, turning into a character from a computer game, as in the play "Net" by Valery Pecheykin. Or maybe he's part of that world himself - a video blogger with a camera instead of a hand, or an intelligent personal assistant named Siri. The protagonists, addicted to the Internet, immersed in virtual space, are metaphorically dehumanized. The characters of the plays "Journal of Alona Cziżuk" by Julia Woronowa and "Grisza" by Inga Wosk communicate with each other only through chats and social networking sites. The man described by contemporary Russian-language playwrights often uses an online nickname instead of his name, and treats sex, usually virtual, as an escape from reality, losing the ability not only to love, but even to feel physical pleasure. The intertextual, text-centric "new drama" is slowly giving way to a new phenomenon that can be described as the Internet "new-new drama". It is also text-centric, but at its center is virtual text.

Keywords:

Russian drama, dehumanization, virtual world, postmodernism, simulacra

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Citation rules

Pieczyński, M. (2023). The issue of dehumanization in the virtual text of the latest Russian dram. Przegląd Rusycystyczny [Russian Studies Review], (2 (182), 99–123. https://doi.org/10.31261/pr.14975

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No. 2 (182) (2023)
Published: 2023-06-19

ISSN: 0137-298X
Ikona DOI 10.31261/pr
Publisher
Polskie Towarzystwo Rusycystyczne oraz Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
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