The plot of the “end of the world” in Russian prose of the 20-21st centuries through the eyes of an intellectual hero: social, fantastic and axiological dimensions

The article examines the problem of the interaction of the hero-intellectual with totalitarian social models in terms of functions performed by this kind of hero during the collapse of the world order around him. For Russian literature of the 20-21st centuries, the idea of social modeling of reality is relevant for a variety of genres, but the most striking examples of alternative artistic worlds, in which readers recognized the elements of their contemporary reality, are instantiated in works with an orientation towards a philosophical parable narrative, which can be complicated by dystopian or fantastic features. In the plot of just retribution and even the destruction of a false society, the most important role is assigned to the hero, whose type can be correlated with the image of an intellectual, traditional for the literature of the twentieth century. This hero combines intelligence and education with compassion for humanity and an inability to accept the unnatural structure of an anti-utopian society. Based on the results of the observations, the article identifies three main options of interaction of the intellectual with the apocalyptic reality. The first option, realized in the novels of V.V. Nabokov's novels “Invitation to a Beheading” and “Kys” by T.N. Tolstaya assert the intellectual's right to destroy the puppet totalitarian states that have captivated him. In the second version, most vividly presented in the story of A. and B. Strugatsky “It is Hard to be a God”, it is the intellectual hero who is responsible for the ongoing apocalypse. The third option, actualized in E.G. Vodolazkin's novel “The Justification of the Island”, involves the prevention of the end of the world through the self-sacrifice of an intellectual hero.