Historical trauma in contemporary Russian literature (based on the novel “Justification” by D. Bykov)

Contemporary Russian literature is seen as an opportunity to return to those historic events that currently appear as a traumatic experience. In contrast to the established cultural and social vision of the past, contemporary literary works find ways to replicate trauma, as well as to study it (through the search for a critical distance). To illustrate this, we focus on the novel “Justification” (2005) by Dmitry Bykov. The novel deals with the traumatic conjunction of the World War II and Stalinism in the national memory. In his work, D. Bykov resorts to the paradox and provocation, typical for postmodern works, to emphasize the problems of historical memory mythologization and the evils of Stalin’s Terror, which found “justification” in the victory over Nazi Germany.