Anna Starobinets’ “Mercy Bus”: The tradition of literary noir in modern Russian short stories

   The article continues the series of scientific materials devoted to the understanding of the Russian literary noir tradition. Exploring the phenomenology of Russian noir, the article considers different facets of the genre and style trend, which is actively declared by modern writers and publishers of popular literature and arouses the reader’s interest precisely with its genre-marking titles that invariably include the noir component. The attempts to comprehend the nature and origins of this variegated and contradictory genre and style trend within the Russian literary process are pushing the need for a consistent description of representative artistic samples that would make it possible to create a typological map of this phenomenon. The article proposes scientific approaches that are productive for studying the nature of a borderline phenomenon created at the intersection of literary, genre and national traditions. The subject of scientific interest in this particular study is one of the first examples of Russian noir - Anna Starobinets’ story “Mercy Bus” (2010). A detailed level-by-level analysis of this sample of short fiction, created in a clear noir-oriented context as a special tradition based on a previously tested research approach, allows us to comprehend the nature of the genre-style model using cinematic techniques in prose. At the same time, the emphasis is placed on the traditional carriers of the story genre: a plot organization, a chronotope, characteristic features of the hero image creation and a specific associative background. The rhythmic and intonational organization of the work is significant for understanding the individual author’s style, which allows emphasizing essential details. The comprehensive analysis of A. Starobinets’ story makes it possible to trace the incarnations of noir in modern Russian literature.

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