Zakhar Prilepin's Traumatic Masculinity

• In Event: Russian Masculinities III: Post-Soviet Masculinities

Abstract

In Zakhar Prilepin's novels and stories male protagonists are all engaged in emphatically masculine professions: they are OMON members, bandits, bouncers, and young revolutionaries. And yet, despite embodying typical macho characteristics, such as brutal force, militarism, and cruelty, they are also gentle, sensitive, compassionate, emotionally fragile at times, and always polite with women. The paper examines the traumatic core of Prilepin's construct of masculinity, which, on the one hand, is predicated on the protagonists' tragic loss and inner brokenness and, on the other, facilitates the effective synthesis of both masculine and feminine traits in their personalities.

Author

• Sergey Toymentsev, Saint Louis U