Literature as premonition

Abstract

There are many examples in literature, when writers managed to predict future. The essay examines this phenomenon on the basis of the novels by Russian writers, which contain parallels and prophetic premonitions of the events in Ukraine 2013-2014, the annexation of the Crimea and warnings against the consequences of these processes. The authors of this study do not aim at passing any political judgment or answering the question "Who is to blame?" but trying instead to say that attentive reading of classic literature might help to understand the processes of nowadays and avoid tragic mistakes. The novels addressed in the essay are written respectively in XX-th and XXI-th centuries: The White Guard by Mikhail Bulgakov, The Island of Crimea by Vasily Aksyonov and Sankya by Zakhar Prilepin. Hopefully, over time these events in Ukraine will gain a comprehensive understanding and will be given a deep and objective analysis, which is hardly possible today. Meanwhile we would like to outline the message inherent in the analyzed works: written in different time periods, sometimes separated by centuries, they express the desire of their authors to draw the readers to the eternal values of the world and suggest ways of overcoming war and discord.