Yuri Mamleev is the founder of the genre of metaphysical realism, the founder of the literary and philosophical school. His prose is a fusion of the grotesque, philosophical and mystical. In his philosophical works Mamleev wrote more than once that Russia creates its own metaphysical reality. In the novel “The Other” (2006), this idea takes on a visible artistic form, realized by a panorama of situations symbolically depicting the life of Moscow in the early 2000 s. In the center of the narrative is a circle of young Moscow intellectuals and representatives of the artistic intelligentsia, who form the spiritual center, the living heart of Moscow and try to comprehend the everyday Russian reality through its involvement with the superreal. The article examines the symbolic and metaphysical aspect of the novel, traces the connection of the figurative system of the novel with the philosophical ideas of the author, with an extensive literary tradition, Mamleev's involvement in the broad paradigm of European culture of the XIX–XX centuries is noted.
Yuri Mamleev; modern Russian literature; “metaphysical realism”; Yuzhinsky Circle; “Eternal Russia”; underground of the 1960 s.