Published: 2020-06-26

“A Late, Embarrassed Descendant”. Male Initiations in the Shadow of a Gulag Camp, Purga, and Totemic Blood

Aleksandra Ubertowska Logo ORCID
Section: Essays and Articles
https://doi.org/10.31261/SSP.2020.15.05

Abstract

What this article attempts to gauge are the possibilities stemming from combining two methodologies: masculinity studies (as a part of gender studies) and ecocriticism/environmental studies. The material for the analysis is the novel by Sergei Lebedev, Oblivion. The author of the article reconstructs the hegemonic pattern of male initiation present in the novel and related with post-communist inheritance of Grandfather II, one of the novel’s characters. Overcoming the imposed pattern of masculinity (authoritative, totalitarian) takes a form of journey into subarctic Russia and seeking the traces of gulag camps. Climate-related factors play a significant role in this process: motifs of Purga, of permafrost, and endemic plant species of Ural and Syberia.

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Citation rules

Ubertowska, A. (2020). “A Late, Embarrassed Descendant”. Male Initiations in the Shadow of a Gulag Camp, Purga, and Totemic Blood. Śląskie Studia Polonistyczne [Silesian Journal of Polish Studies], 15(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.31261/SSP.2020.15.05

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Vol. 15 No. 1 (2020)
Published: 2020-09-16


ISSN: 2084-0772
eISSN: 2353-0928

Publisher
Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego | University of Silesia Press

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