The topos of school in women's prose of 2000s

The article presents women’s view on school-life in the post-Soviet period. Novels “Iolka. Iz shkoly s ljubovju, ili Dnevnik uchitelnitsy” (“A fir tree. From school with love, or a teacher’s Diary”) by O. Kameneva and “Uchilka” (“A teacher”) by N. Terentieva show the way the Soviet era heritage and problems caused by the transition period are interweaved in today’s school. Analysis of the main female characters in both novels reveals that, on the one hand, they are untypical of contemporary “school text”, and on the other hand, they are typical of women’s prose. The novels reflect such problems characteristic of women’s prose as relationship between men and women, women’s emancipation, self-realization and bringing up children. It is shown that features of a women’s novel and a school story blend in both novels, which fits the last decades tendency to genre fusion. Representation of school in women’s prose is similar to that in novels by male authors. Problems of post-Soviet life, such as social inequality, mistrust of a teacher, low culture, deterioration in values and ideological vacuum are mingling with problems inherited from the Soviet society. That is the object of discussion in both novels.