Russian-Language Autofiction and Cultural Trauma(s)

Abstract

This paper is the first examination of its kind of the Russian-language autofiction tradition, which emerged and developed in the context of recent socio-political upheavals. There is currently no single and universal understanding of what ‘autofiction’ is, and each national literary tradition implies its own nuances. In Russian literature, autofiction also has its own specific agenda and modulations, which derive exclusively from practice rather than theory (as was the case, say, with French literature). Initially facing harsh scepticism, Russian autofiction has gradually become a significant literary genre, largely preoccupied with the personal and collective traumas of the post-Soviet era. The paper traces the genre’s peculiarities and evolution, highlighting its roots in Soviet ‘camp prose’ and émigré memoirs. The first part of the paper provides a comprehensive overview of how autofiction has emerged and gained prominence in recent Russian literature. It explores the genre’s thematic preoccupations and its interaction with broader literary traditions, including its adaptation and transformation of Western autofictional texts. The second part employs theories of cultural traumas and cultural memory to analyse how Russian-language autofiction represents and refracts the traumatic experiences of its authors, offering new perspectives on collective memory and identity. Through this analysis, the article demonstrates how Russian autofiction affects the ‘transpersonal dimension’ through exploration of distorted family memories as well as dealing with the intergenerational and intertextual transmission of traumatic experience.