Peasant disappearing atlantis in the novel of Roman Senchin’s The Zone of Submersion

Iwona Zdanowicz

Uniwersytet w Białymstoku, Wydział Filologiczny, Instytut Filologii Wschodniosłowiańskiej
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5304-8110

Abstract

This paper presents the current ecological situation in Siberia. The Zone of Submersion becomes the continuation of Valentin Rasputin’s Farewell to Matyora, transformation of its problems (using other artistic terms) into the future, at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Senchin depicts how villages are being submerged and writes about the displacement of population inhabiting flood plains on a macro scale. Senchin’s novel is a kind of document on the flooding zone and the construction of Boguczanska hydroelectric power plant on the Angara River. The author draws his reader’s attention to the fact that although the progress of civilization gives man new possibilities, he faces unprecedented choices and difficulties. Due to the displacement people lose their homes and lands, cultural monuments disappear under water. Thus, social issues are inseparably linked to the problem of ecology.

Keywords:

Roman Senchin, new realism, The Zone of Submersion, Boguczanska hydroelectric power plant, ecological problems