Журнал «Филоlogos»

TO THE PROBLEM OF GENRE IDENTIFICATION OF LITERATURE CYBERPUNK (ON THE EXAMPLE OF RUSSIAN CYBERPUNK OF 90s - 2000s)

Author: Kamalova A.T.

The article describes the main reasons for the formation of the cyberpunk genre. At the same time, Russian literary cyberpunk is regarded as a kind of genre symbiosis between science fiction and anti-utopia. The main components of the genre are the anti-utopian world of the future on the threshold of social and cultural changes and fantasy elements associated with fiction based on scientific discovery and technological progress. The "man-technique" conflict as a characteristic of the genre is embodied in a fantastic plot and characters. This conflict is intertwined with another: "man-nature". The idea that scientific and technical progress inevitably leads to disruption of ecological equilibrium is revealed in the images of a dying nature. And as a result - animals are replaced by robots, which sometimes are capable of acting and thinking like humans, machine-human hybrids appear. Such a "substitution" is only an unsuccessful attempt to restore the harmony between man and nature which was lost. It creates the impression of illusion, self-deception, artificiality, like the entire virtual world, which is highly critically evaluated by the writers. What is happening in the new world is accompanied by increasing social inequality. By contrasting robots and cyborgs with ordinary people the authors focus the reader's attention on the fact that the members of the future society have not only unequal abilities, but also unequal rights. The global image of this inequality is transnational corporations, whose wealth contrasts with the post-apocalyptic images of the urban slums where the poor live. However, the authors of the cyberpunk lead the reader to the idea that society can change the current situation.