Literary utopia and dystopia: the peculiarities of genres, the aspects of hermeneutic research

The purpose of the article is to clarify the genre characteristics of the British and the Russian dystopian fiction. The work is focused, on the one hand, on the genre and theory analysis of utopias and, on the other hand, on the content and structure analysis of the main binary concept «Time: the Present and the Possible Future», as well as related concepts. The key concepts are interpreted according to the procedures used in the philological hermeneutics. The distinctive features of the British and the Russian dystopias are revealed. The axiological essence of the «British» dystopia is stability and simplicity leading to stagnation within linear time. The «Russian» dystopia in Efremov’s novel is based on the ideas of communism impossible to implement. Chekhov’s short story «The Bet» is based on the traditions of «spiritual realism» and focuses the reader’s attention on the correlation of the secular and religious paths to the «perfect human being».