«European Ship» of Yevgeny Zamyatin: Thoughts on the Fate of the Russian Intelligentsia

Abstract

The socio-political, historiosophical and aesthetic views of E. I. Zamyatin become particularly evident with reference to his allegory of Russia as an icebreaker. Its historical path is connected with the special mode of the country's movement in history. A wide range of texts  (from « Uezdnoe» and « Ostrovitiane » to works of the emigrant period - «Scourge of God», « Heretic Conversations») is used as a source material for the interpretation of Zamyatin's views. Zamyatin inherited the aesthetic principles of Russian literature of the XIX century, including the idea of the public role of the writer as a "prophet" and "messenger of truth". A theory about the connection between the writer's early death and his exile from the country also puts forward.