Multilingual Strategies in Sorokin’s Manaraga and Pelevin’s Watchman
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
This article examines multilingualism in the prose of Vladimir Sorokin and Viktor Pelevin through an integrated translingual and sociolinguistic framework. Despite extensive scholarship on both authors’ postmodern and neomodernist aesthetics, the role of multilingual practices in their narrative structures remained underexplored. The study addresses this gap by analyzing how code-switching, borrowing, neologism, and resemanticization function across their texts as systematic rather than ornamental devices. Drawing on close reading and corpus-based selection of multilingual elements, the analysis identifies three main dimensions of literary multilingualism: discursive power, identity negotiation, and cultural translation. These dimensions reveal how linguistic hierarchies encode ideological asymmetries, how characters and narrative voices construct shifting subjectivities in contexts of globalization and post-Soviet transformation, and how meaning is transformed through cross-linguistic circulation. The comparative analysis shows that Sorokin’s multilingualism foregrounds cultural commodification and the marketization of language, while Pelevin’s linguistic hybridity emphasizes ontological instability and the simulation of meaning systems. In both cases, multilingual practices destabilize monolingual norms and function as structural principles shaping dystopian imaginaries, cultural critique, and representations of the world. The article argues that multilingualism in these works is not a stylistic feature but a central mechanism through which power, ideology, and meaning are produced and contested in contemporary Russian literature.
Article Details
Section
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Journal of Philology and Educational Sciences is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY-4.0).
How to Cite
References
Ala-Risku, R. (2024). The metalinguistic dimension of literary multilingualism: Linguistic biographies in Italian fiction. Forum for Modern Language Studies, 60(1), 129–144, doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/cqae001
Alexiadou, A., & Lohndal, T. (2018). Units of language mixing: A cross-linguistic perspective. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, Article 1719, doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01719
Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: Four essays (M. Holquist, Ed.; C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Trans.). University of Texas Press.
Bar-Itzhak, C. (2021). From utopia to retrotopia: The cosmopolitan city in the aftermath of modernity. In L. Ameel, M. Salmela, & J. Finch (Eds.), Literatures of urban possibility (pp. 65–87). Springer, doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70909-9_4
Buschfeld, S., Ronan, P., & Vida-Mannl, M. (2023). Multilingualism: A sociolinguistic and acquisitional approach. Palgrave Macmillan, doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28405-2
Deganutti, M. (2024). Literary multilingualism: Exploring latent practices. Textual Practice, 38(4), 594–613, doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/0950236X.2022.2150678
Delabastita, D., & Grutman, R. (2005). Fictional representations of multilingualism and translation. Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series: Themes in Translation Studies, 4, 11–34, doi: https://doi.org/10.52034/lanstts.v4i.124
Fedorova, K., & Protassova, E. (2024). Introduction: Decolonizing linguistic space: Language policies, practices and ideologies in the post-Soviet countries. Region: Regional Studies of Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia, 13(1), 1–7, doi: https://doi.org/10.1353/reg.2024.a950428
Gardner-Chloros, P., & Weston, D. (2015). Code-switching and multilingualism in literature. Language and Literature, 24(3), 182–193, doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0963947015585065
Garipova, G. T. (2021). Artistic realization of “post-literary” cultural and philosophical models in modern literature: Based on the material of V. Sorokin’s novel Manaraga. Philology: Theory & Practice, 14(3), 602–607, doi: https://doi.org/10.30853/phil210058
Gomel, E. (2013). Viktor Pelevin and literary postmodernism in Post-Soviet Russia. Narrative, 21(3), 309–321, doi: https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2013.0014
Hansen, J. (2018). Introduction: Translingualism and transculturality in Russian contexts of translation. Translation Studies, 11(2), 113–121, doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/14781700.2018.1434087
Juraveț, A. (2018). Conjuncția dintre cărți și gastronomie în proza rusă contemporană. Romanoslavica, 54(3), 49–59.
Kazarina, T. V. (2018). Vladimir Sorokin and Russian avant-garde. Vestnik Samarskogo Universiteta. Istoriia, Pedagogika, Filologiia, 24(4), 132–138, doi: https://doi.org/10.18287/2542-0445-2018-24-4-132-138
Kellman, S. G. (2019). Literary translingualism: What and why? Polylinguality and Transcultural Practices, 16(3), 337–346, doi: https://doi.org/10.22363/2618-897X-2019-16-3-337-346
Kellman, S. G., & Lvovich, N. (Eds.). (2022). The Routledge handbook of literary translingualism. Routledge, doi: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429298745
Khagi, S. (2021). Pelevin and unfreedom: Poetics, politics, metaphysics. Northwestern University Press. DOI status: No DOI found.
Khagi, S. (2022). Introduction: Victor Pelevin: Life, works, critical debates. In S. Khagi (Ed.), Companion to Victor Pelevin (pp. vii–xxxiv). Academic Studies Press, doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781644697771-001
Khatkova, I. N., & Beshukova, F. B. (2022). Ways to model the artistic world of dystopia in V. Sorokin’s novel Manaraga. Bulletin of Adyghe State University, Series: Philology and Art Criticism, 4, 89–96, doi: https://doi.org/10.53598/2410-3489-2022-4-307-89-96
Lipovetsky, M. (2016). The formal is political. The Slavic and East European Journal, 60(2), 185–204.
Lizoň, M. (2021). “Manaraga” and other writings: Some aspects of the Russian literature model formation in the Russian book market. Philological Class, 26(1), 9–21, doi: https://doi.org/10.51762/1FK-2021-26-01-01
Ljunggren, A. (2018). The contemporary Russian cosmopolitans. In S. Helgesson, A. M. Alling, Y. Lindqvist, & H. Wulff (Eds.), World literatures: Exploring the cosmopolitan-vernacular exchange (pp. 211–228). Stockholm University Press, doi: https://doi.org/10.16993/bat.s
Lubarsky, R. V. (2022). Concepts of Carlos Castaneda in Victor Pelevin’s novel The Caretaker: Order of the Yellow Flag (Book 1). Vestnik of Tver State University. Series: Philology, 3, 53–61.
Lunde, I. (2018). Language on display: Writers, fiction and linguistic culture in Post-Soviet Russia. Edinburgh University Press, doi: https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9781474421560.001.0001
Lvovich, N. (1997). The multilingual self: An inquiry into language learning. Routledge, doi: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203062982
Maguire, M., & McAteer, C. (Eds.). (2024). Translating Russian literature in the global context. Open Book Publishers, doi: https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0340
Magun, A. (2017). Viktor Pelevin’s postmodern apocalypse. Stasis, 5(1), 86–102, doi: https://doi.org/10.33280/2310-3817-2017-5-1-86-102
Mar’iushkina, A. P. (2021). Intertextual field of V. O. Pelevin’s novel prose: Based on the novel The Caretaker. In T. I. Mochalova (Ed.), Aktual’nye problemy filologii i zhurnalistiki (pp. 43–49). Ogarev National Research Mordovia State University.
Nordin, I. G., Hansen, J., & Llena, C. Z. (Eds.). (2013). Transcultural identities in contemporary literature. Rodopi, doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789401209878
Paesani, K., & Menke, M. (2023). Literacies in language education: A guide for teachers and teacher educators. Georgetown University Press.
Pelevin, V. (2015). Smotritel’: Kniga 1. Orden zheltogo flaga; Kniga 2. Zheleznaya bezdna [The caretaker: Book 1. Order of the yellow flag; Book 2. The iron abyss].
Pešková, M. (2020). Transformation of the motif of journey in the conditions of contemporary globalisation: Sorokin–Topol. Opera Slavica, 30(3), 19–29, doi: https://doi.org/10.5817/OS2020-3-2
Preece, J., & Rees, A. (2021). How bilingual novelists utilize their linguistic knowledge: Towards a typology of the contemporary “modern languages novel” in English. Modern Languages Open, 2021(1), Article 2, doi: https://doi.org/10.3828/mlo.v0i0.378
Radchenko, S. (2024). Shades of post-postmodernism in Russian life and literature: A metamodern study of Viktor Pelevin and Vladimir Sorokin. Ideology and Politics Journal, 1, 81–106, doi: https://doi.org/10.36169/2227-6068.2024.01.00004
Sommer, D. (2004). Bilingual aesthetics: A new sentimental education. Duke University Press, doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822385790
Sorokin, V. (2017). Manaraga. AST.
Stryjakowska, A. (2019). Nostalgia za klasyką w powieści Manaraga Władimira Sorokina. Studia Rossica Posnaniensia, 44(2), 85–92, doi: https://doi.org/10.14746/strp.2019.44.2.8
Suslov, M., & Bodin, P.-A. (Eds.). (2020). The post-Soviet politics of utopia: Language, fiction and fantasy in modern Russia. I.B. Tauris, doi: https://doi.org/10.5040/9781788317078
Tatarinov, A. V., & Bezrukavaya, M. V. (2019). The novels Manaraga by Vladimir Sorokin and Iphuck 10 by Viktor Pelevin: Post- or neo-modernism. Vestnik Pyatigorskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta, 3, 100–103.
Taylor-Batty, J. (2013). Multilingualism in modernist fiction. Palgrave Macmillan, doi: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137367969
Trotman, T. O. (2017). Mythopoetics of post-Soviet literary fiction: Viktor Pelevin and Vladimir Sorokin, Doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago.
Tsygankova, N. B. (2022). The specificity of the depiction of space in the novel by V. O. Pelevin The Caretaker. In E. I. Khachikyan (Ed.), Perekriostki vzaimodeystvii: Dialog russkoy i zarubezhnoy literatury vo vremeni i prostranstve [Crossroads of interaction: A dialogue between Russian and foreign literature across time and space] (pp. 472–477). Tsiolkovski Kaluga Federal State University.
Turysheva, O. N. (2018). Books burning: The new semantics of the old motif: On the novel Manaraga by V. Sorokin. Philological Class, 2(52), 141–145, doi: https://doi.org/10.26710/fk18-02-23
Uffelmann, D. (2020). Vladimir Sorokin’s discourses: A companion. Academic Studies Press, doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/9781644692868
Vinokour, M. (2017, August 23). Conspiratorial realism: On Vladimir Sorokin, Victor Pelevin, and Russia’s post-postmodern turn. Los Angeles Review of Books.
Vinokour, M. (2023). Victor Pelevin and the aesthetics of neoreaction. The Russian Review, 82(4), 631–648, doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/russ.12526
Wiegandt, K. (Ed.). (2020). The transnational in literary studies: Potential and limitations of a concept. De Gruyter, doi: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110688726
Williams, H. T. (2020). Translingualism as creative revolt: Rewriting dominant narratives of translingual literature. FORUM: University of Edinburgh Postgraduate Journal of Culture & the Arts, 30, 2–12, doi: https://doi.org/10.2218/forum.30.4474
Zhou, G. (2011). The language of utopia. In Placing the modern Chinese vernacular in transnational literature (pp. 15–44). Palgrave Macmillan, doi: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230117044_2
Zywert, A. (2019). Futurystyczna uczta literacka: Władimir Sorokin, Манарага. Studia Rossica Posnaniensia, 44(1), 233–244, doi: https://doi.org/10.14746/strp.2019.44.1.22