“IT COULD HAVE BEEN OTHERWISE”: HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN STATE AS INTERPRETED BY B. AKUNIN

Abstract

The article examines B. Akunin’s project “History of the Russian State” in the aspect of historiosophical concept of the writer, implemented both in historical volumes and in a series of artistic accompaniments to them. It is shown that the project is generally characterized by the special modality of the possible, but not accomplished, the constant articulation of failure’s significance, the specific author’s intonation related to the constant feeling of a missed choice of a more successful historical path. In the writer’s historical narrative, the space of unrealized possibilities is explained both by the special geographical position of the country and by the psychological and even psychophysiological oddities of the main history figures. In artistic applications the author’s optics are changing. If the method of psychological deciphering becomes the dominant technique in historical volumes, then in fiction accompaniments the emphasis is on demonstrating the role of chance and occasionality in formation and development of the Russian state. It is realized by the technique of retroprognostication, forcing the reader to remember (not without disappointment) that history does not know the conjunctive mood. © 2022 Institute of History and Archeology of the Ural Branch of RAS. All rights reserved.