Language, Individual & Society, Volume 14, 2020

Abstract: The collapse of the Russian Empire during the First World War led initially to the proclamation and then to the creation of new independent states. Alongside, the process of outflow of the Bolsheviks’ ideological and political opponents from Soviet Russia began. As a result, millions of former citizens of the Russian Empire were in exile creating a new culture of Russian emigration. Of particular interest is the attitude of Russian Soviet culture and Russian emigrant culture to Latvia and other new countries of Europe. The novel by Peter Krasnov is a rather rarely met genre of anti-utopia in the literature of Russian emigration. In the artistic world of the novel, Russia is opposed to Europe. ‘How to return and how to equip Russia’ is one of the cross-cutting themes in the literature of Russian emigration. In the fantastic world of P. Krasnov, history is inverted. In Europe socialist and communist ideas prevail, and Russia is miraculously protected by the thistle thickets from the social plague that brings death and destruction to European civilization. Latvia turns out to be a kind of intermediate link, preserving the features of both the German and Russian world, turning into specific borderland space. Due to its geographical proximity to Russia, the Latvian space gains special semantics. For Europe, Latvia reminds of the old, extinct Russia.