From “apotheosis of groundlessness” to apotheosis of violence

The article is devoted to the development of Russian contemporary drama and European theatre. The research of stage texts allows to reveal a number of destructive factors and trace the sources of violence legitimation in art. Absolutization of “alienation”, determining the formation of scenic language of crisis society, can be traced in the European culture of the beginning of the XXth century. Contemporary theatre manifests violence as an indispensable element to the artistic structure of contemporary art. Provocative aesthetics of “theatre of violence” is brought into focus in the contemporary sociocultural context. Theatre play with the categories of “violent” and “ugly”, exposition of social and psychological traumas reinforces “horizontal” dimension of scenic reality.