Хронотоп антиутопического города: энтропия мысли, социальной активности и исторического времени

doi:10.18522/2227-8656.2023.5.5

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18522/2227-8656.2023.5.5
EDN: CSVJFX

Inna V. Kovtunenko Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russia iv.kovtunenko@yandex.ru ORCID ID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9559-6227
Elibrary Author_id 671852
Igor A. Kudryashov Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russia igalk@mail.ru ORCID ID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5449-864X
Elibrary Author_id 186103
Yuliya S. Soboleva Municipal autonomous cultural institution Rostov-on-Don Zoo, Rostov-on-Don, Russia yuliyagorod@yandex.ru

How to Cite

Kovtunenko I.V., Kudryashov I.A., Soboleva Y.S. Chronotope of a dystopian city: entropy of thought, social activity and historical time. Humanities of the South of Russia. 2023. Vol. 12. No. 5. P. 70-86. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18522/2227-8656.2023.5.5

Abstract

Objective of the study is to prove that in prototypical texts created in the genre of dystopia, the urban chronotope is a constructive mechanism for explicating the author's hyperbolized ideas about the existential (intellectual and physical activity) and epistemological (space–time continuum) categories of the socio-political structure of modern society. The methodological basis of the research. The publication details ideas about the interdisciplinary relationship between the genre of dystopia and sociology in the study of artistic concepts about the prospects for the development of the modern world order. Proto-political dystopias are analyzed in terms of the theory of sociological imagination (Seeger, Davison-Vacchione, 2019), sociological formats for reproducing imaginary reality in a literary text (archaeology, ontology and architecture) (Levitas, 2013). The study of dystopian urban everyday life is based on the concept of M. M. chronotope. Bakhtin (Bakhtin, 1975), postulates of hermeneutical and philosophical-philological comparative studies (comparisons of imaginary worlds by E. I. Zamyatin, O. Huxley and J. Orwell's model of the pessimistic outcome of humanity by G. Wells). In this study, we also emphasize the constructive importance of the central metaphor of entropy formulated by E. I. Zamyatin in the essay "On Literature, Revolution, Entropy and Other Issues" (1923), where it means the intellectual stagnation of dogmatism. "Energy" is the renewal of thinking through the destruction of political, ideological and epistemological dogmas; "entropy" is a conservative force that stops changes and strengthens dogma (Zamyatin, 2023. Р. 205-206). Research results. Dystopian urban chronotopes appear in the novels of E. I. Zamyatin, O. Huxley and J. Orwell's marker for the coverage of the history of mankind. The topography of the city implies the results of the subjective perception of the category of time by the characters. In this regard, the "open" chronotope captures various levels of the characters' time experience. Moreover, this diversity may subsequently become more complicated, including new results of the perception of historical time in terms of the first steps towards revolutionary thought or action. Prospects of the study. The subsequent sociological details of the opposition of dystopia to the values and ideals of the utopian style of thinking appear promising. Dystopian texts reproduce: 1. "entropic" and therefore destructive consequences of the influence exerted by emerging social systems that reduce intellectual multidimensionality (cf. G. Marcuse's ideas about "one-dimensional man" (Marcuse, 2003)); 2. the potential of the individual and of all mankind. While researching such texts, the sociologist focuses on the negative aspects of imperious universal control, leading to social "achievements" that contribute to the manipulative strengthening of standardization and uniformity of society. An urgent problem is the study of the sphere of author's dystopian reflections, which is, in particular, the chronotope of the modern political landscape, which determines the ideological processing of society and culture.

Keywords:

dystopian imaginary world, urban everyday life, sociological imagination, chronotope, revolutionary temporality, entropy

Author Biographies

Inna V. Kovtunenko, Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russia

Doctor of Philological Sciences, Professor

Igor A. Kudryashov, Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russia

Doctor of Philological Sciences, Professor

Yuliya S. Soboleva, Municipal autonomous cultural institution Rostov-on-Don Zoo, Rostov-on-Don, Russia

Director

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Chronotope of a dystopian city: entropy of thought, social activity and historical time

Research Article

Abstract

Author Biographies

References