The Adventures of Russian Time-Travelers in America

• In Event: Crossing the Russian Border: Transformations of Genres

Abstract

Fedorova’s paper will discuss time travel and alternate history novels in post-Soviet fiction as a phenomenon of ressentiment. She will focus on works where the characters cross not only temporal but also geographical borders, traveling from Russia to America and managing to change its history (such as Kirill Eskov’s America: Reload Game, Andrei Ulanov’s All the Federal Men, Sergei Buzinin’s People and Flags, and Mikhail Lantsov’s From the Future – to the Battle: Paratrooper on the Throne). These texts work with complex projections of domestic realities onto foreign ones and often demonstrate a combination of superiority and inferiority complexes on the part of Russian authors. Fedorova will demonstrate how the canon of American travelogues written by Soviet writers transformed in post-Soviet times through the lens of time traveling. She will also analyze the connection between Russian reenactments of historical events in America and alternate histories.

Author

• Milla (Lioudmila) Fedorova, Georgetown U