About dreams of a new type in K.K. Vaginov's novel “Garpagoniana”

The article describes the types of dreams in the novel “Garagoniana” by Konstantin Vaginov. The starting point for the author’s reflections is the A.K. Zholkovsky’s concept of a new type of dreams. Dreams of a new type differ from the classical ones in two aspects: metaliterature (dreams of a new type depend on literary genealogy) and anti-totalitarian (dreams are directed against any kind of invasion of privacy). However, this approach to dreams is typical for thinking about dystopian prose. “Garagoniana” is not dystopian novel. A.K. Zholkovsky’s concept about dreams of a new type aspects are not so pointed in the novel. Vaginov is overturns the traditional understanding of the function of dreams and a hero-a dreamer in “Garpagoniana”. In the traditional sense, the dream should reveal the inner world of the character. By means of night (or day) visions the hero-dreamer gets a certain individual experience which further on a plot can be useful to it somehow, and to the reader to help to understand better “psychology” of the character. Vaginov’s hero-dreamer is deprived of the ability to dream. He ascribes to the stories, which he had not seen. In “Garpagoniana” dreams become written stories. The characters use dreams to compile registers and collections. Dreams of heroes from the area of private pass to the area of public: they can be bought, sold and stolen. And if possible this kind of operation, then your chances appropriation of another’s identity through profitable deals. Thus, the subjectivity of the dream is leveled, its grotesque individual story becomes available to any reader. Dream ceases to be a hiding place of the soul: going into the public sphere, it can be subjected to interpretation is not always beneficial to the Soviet dreamer of 1930’s.