Gularyan, A. B. ‘Coming War’ as the Literary Genre

Abstract: One of the most important signs indicating that a society is ready for a new war is the appearance of war scenarios in literature. Indeed, so called ‘utopian war novels’ often preceded actual military actions and even predicted the nature and outlines of future battles for these novels reflected the epoch and the public opinion of the epoch. Russian science fiction writers wrote about the coming war, too. In Russia the genre of the utopian war novel has become the mean of expression for former and acting military officers, the mean of building a desired future and propaganda for revolutionary-minded intelligentsia as well as the mean of mobilization of the public spirit for the communist government of the country in the pre-war period. Literary plots of those times also demonstrate that Stalin and his government were still getting ready for the revolutionary war between social classes. The ‘coming war’ literary genre had the two socially important functions, to warn about the coming war and to mobilize the public spirit in the pre-war period.

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