Article

Name: The Dog-Heads in Modern Russian Literature: Between the Monster and Christ

Authors: Valerij V. Maroshi

Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

Abstract:

Cynocephali appear in ancient and medieval cosmographies, novels and travel stories. Legends about them have been preserved in the folklore of Eastern Europe. In Western cultural studies, they are studied as one of the embodiments of the Other. In Russia, religious and cultural interest in cynocephali is related to the unique icon-ographic image of St. Christopher the Dog-Headed. Since the late 2000s, cynocephali as characters and especially St. Christopher have firmly established themselves in Russian social and “sacred” fiction in the genres of travel, horror, and dystopia. The article analyses the works of M. Galina, A. Ivanov, V. Sorokin, M. Shishkin, M. Tikhomirov and other authors. Cynocephali were initially associated with the role of guardian dogs and the gods guarding the afterlife, and in modern literature dogs usually coexist with dog-heads. The cynocephalus is a character of the frontier, an outcast of the anthropocentric world, he is an intermediary or a guardian of the border. Cynocephali exist on the outskirts of civilization or at its critical points (villages, forests, wars, the destruction of the human genome). They are beings of an interme-diate type between man and monster, man and animal, the demonic and the sacred. This corresponds to the multifaceted image of the cynocephali’s appearance and behavior (which ranges from demonic aggressiveness to creative activity and intellectualism) and the motif of a werewolf. St. Christopher is the cynocephali’s patron saint. His ekphrastic image in the form of an icon or a fresco is represented in most of the ana-lysed works.

Keywords: cynocephali, monster, St. Christopher, frontier, fantasy, mixanthropic, modern Russian literature

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