Anna Remez’s story “The cat from Jupiter and invertebrates”: features of following the genre formula about “time travelers to the USSR” and the author’s originality

The article notes approaches to the interpretation of “time travel” literature and the characteristics of one of its varieties – a fantastic school/vacation story about “time travelers” to the Soviet past. A review of texts written in the first decades of the 21st century about the displacement of children into the Soviet past (T. Kryukova, A. Zhvalevsky, E. Pasternak, etc.) allows us to speak about the development of a certain genre formula, which all authors follow in one way or another. A. Remеz’s novel “The Cat from Jupiter” is analyzed from the point of view of the embodiment of the selected genre features and the author’s originality. The writer follows the main plot line of the genre (the sudden transfer of a child from the present to the past, the use of a border locus, the perception by the “time traveler” of Soviet life as gray and dull, relationships with adults as stricter, more regulated, not taking into account the subjectivity of the child). But, unlike other authors, A. Remez uses the locus of a sanatorium, not a school or a pioneer camp to move a character; she, more than other writers, pays attention not only to the difference, but also to the similarity of forms of children’s subculture of the Soviet period and the 2010s, gives a kind of encyclopedia of children’s life in a medical sanatorium 1980s: describes the rules of street team games, burying “secrets” for memory, as well as forms of spending time in the ward (weaving toys, telling horror stories, reading books, discussing films) and many others. Moving into the past, and in the finale back to one’s own time, strengthened the connection between generations, made the world of parents, their values and childhood memories more understandable for a modern child, as they became familiar with this world through immersion.

Soviet past, “time travelers to the USSR”, fantastic school story, modern children’s literature