The dynamics between the synchronic state of the language and its diachronic dimension is an issue that informs many of the discussions about the condition of the language in Russia today. Language change is at the heart of the language debates; new words, novel expressions and stylistic variation provoke all kinds of reactions, including nostalgia for earlier states of the language as well as stark prognoses about its future.

In the previous chapter, we looked at the recent linguistic past – the legacy of the Soviet era – and saw how the accumulated implications of languages and styles linked to this legacy are tackled in post-Soviet Russian prose works. In the present chapter, we will look at the diachronic dimension of language in a broader perspective, exploring how prose writers create fictional representations of a past, or a future, where language emerges as an essential theme. I will focus on two main works, one portraying a fictional future for Russian – Tat’iana Tolstaia's 2000 novel Kys’ (The Slynx), and one diving into the language's past – Evgenii Vodolazkin's Lavr (Laurus) from 2012.

LINGUISTIC DYSTOPIA: TAT’IANA TOLSTAIA

Tat’iana Tolstaia, who published her first literary works in the mideighties, had been known mainly as a writer of short stories when her long-awaited novel The Slynx – a catastrophe tale – appeared in 2000.

The dystopian (or anti-utopian, the preferred Russian term) novel has become a highly popular genre in post-Soviet Russian prose. While the 1990s brought about a reorientation in the assessment of both the past and the future in a number of cultural practices, the real boom in the literary genre of dystopia came with the turn of the twenty-first century (Chantsev 2009; Ågren 2014: 3; Borenstein 2015). The dystopian genre invites reflection on, and often critique of, contemporary society, largely by exploring possible developments of a future world. Such scenarios may be radical, shocking and extreme, and they often address issues related to language.

Turning to Tolstaia's The Slynx, I hasten to say that many critics do not in fact consider the book to be a dystopian novel.