Constructive vs destructive metatext in works of modern Russian prose

The article explores the structure, semantics, and functions of metatext within literary texts. It delineates the scope and content of the metatext concept through comparison with terms such as reflexive and regulative. The author advances an original understanding of metatext, asserting that metatext and reflexive denote distinct semantic levels within a text, with reflexives establishing the metatextual framework. Metatext serves as a semantic platform facilitating the translation of the text's artistic intent. The paper presents a typological analysis of metatext structures in contemporary Russian fiction, identifying two primary functional and stylistic categories: constructive and destructive metatext. Constructive metatext emerges from the author's application of a creative model grounded in the semantic potential of signs, while destructive metatext operates through the deconstruction of semantic norms, thereby engendering alternative artistic reality.