Discourse Space for Studying the Phenomenon of Utopia in Modern Russia: A Paradigmatic Analysis

Using the example of Russian discourse, the article demonstrates modern trends in the study of utopias. Research topics are analysed and key conceptual trends are highlighted. The subject of consideration is monographs, dissertations and articles published in scholarly peer-reviewed journals, the selection criteria being relevance, novelty, use of modern methodology, as well as practical significance. The analysis involved general research methods. The works span between 2020 and 2023, which includes the period of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as serious changes in the global political situation. The author hypothesizes that the pandemic and foreign policy events of 2022–2023 have updated the topics of utopia and dystopia studies. The paper concludes that the interest in the subject remains strong and that in-depth historical and philosophical research into this phenomenon is being conducted. In Russian discourse, utopia is often viewed as “a place that does not exist”. When utopia is interpreted as a “blessed land”, it represents an ideal or an ever-elusive horizon line. In cases where the feasibility of implementing a utopia is discussed, it is noted that it ceases to be a utopia and undergoes a number of fundamental changes, turning into its antipode. The possibility of serious social changes, dreamed of by the authors of utopias, is not categorically denied by researchers, the reservation being that people must be prepared for a new social order, different from the existing models of society. The most successful form of a utopian work is still considered to be a narrative. With the use of modern technologies, utopia is primarily visualized in disaster films or computer games, that is, once again takes on a shape of its opposite. However, despite a significant amount of research published on the problems of utopia, Russian discourse remains quite conservative in relation to the global trends in understanding and studying this phenomenon.