Institutional Gothic in the Novels of Vladimir Sharov and Evgenii Vodolazkin

Abstract

Vladimir Sharov (1952-2018) and Evgenii Vodolazkin (1964-) are among the most significant and influential writers of contemporary postmodern Russian fiction. This article argues that the subgenre of institutional Gothic – defined here as Gothic plots set in mental asylums, hospital wards, and other places of involuntary confinement – is an important structural and metafictional element in their novels. It also suggests that these authors’ use of the Gothic mode corresponds to the traditional function of Gothic narrative as a reaction to historical trauma. Each of the novels discussed here (Sharov’s Sled v sled (In His Footsteps, 1988), and Vodolazkin’s Aviator (The Aviator, 2016)) re-sites traditional European Gothic plots in analogous Soviet and post-Soviet institutional settings, including the clinic, the prison camp, and the mental asylum. For context, the article also discusses Gothic aspects of Sharov’s later novels Repetitsii (The Rehearsals, 1992) and Do i vo vremia (Before and During, 1993).