The artistic worlds of Russian anarchism at the beginning of the 20th century (the problem of the ideal)

The article examines the problem of the ideal on the material of fantasy novels and fairy tales by Russian anarchist writers of the early 20th century (A. Yaroslavsky, S. Zayats, A. A. Karelin, etc.). The author argues that political revisionism in anarchist theory created the conditions through which anarchists began to write not only publicistic but also literary art texts. The process of aestheticizing the revolutionary ideal is at the heart of these changes. The anarchists of the early 20th century were often skeptical of their 19th-century predecessors, believing that it was impossible to create a ready-made model of the future social order by means of abstract reason. In their own works of fiction, they created entire imaginary worlds through which they conceptualized the possibility of a free society without a state. The article pays special attention to the utopian poem "Anarchy in the Dream: Country Anarchy" (1919) by Gordin brothers. The author analyzes the history of the publication of the work, its ethical and aesthetic features and cultural value in the context of the genre of literary utopias.