"Space Crisis" and the Deconstruction of Village Prose in Lyudmila Petrushevskaya's Short Story "New Robinsons" Based on the Motif of Escape

The article is dedicated to identifying the issues of the "crisis of space" and the dystopian nature of the "escape" motif in a postmodern context. The subject of the study is the artistic specificity of embodying the "crisis of space" and the "escape" motif in Lyudmila Petrushevskaya's story "New Robinsons." The object of the research is Petrushevskaya's work in the context of the traditions of Russian village prose. The article examines aspects of the theme such as the opposition of a hostile external world to the enclosed space of survival on three levels (physical, psychological, and social), the transformation of the traditional hero into the image of "Robinsonade," and the transformation of the existential anxiety and marginality of the modern person within Petrushevskaya's artistic-aesthetic system. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the movement and interaction of spatial models to reveal the profound meanings of the crisis of consciousness in the post-Soviet era. The methodological foundation of the work is a synthesis of cultural-historical (to understand post-Soviet socio-cultural reality) and comparative literature methods (to deconstruct the archetype of the village). The scientific novelty of this work lies in the fact that through the lens of the "crisis of space" and the escape motif, the author shows how Petrushevskaya dismantles the traditional image of the village as a spiritual home in Russian literature through anti-idyllic writing and exposes the absurdity of human existence in a postmodern context. The results of the study demonstrate that through the escape motif, L. Petrushevskaya showcases the spatial crisis of post-Soviet times: neither the city nor the village can protect a person, and society plunges into a psychological crisis. The writer destroys the myth of the idyllic village, reflects the collapse of the economy, and the emptiness of spiritual values. Ultimately, against an anti-utopian backdrop, the author compels the reader to ponder what "home" and "safety" truly mean.