Constructive and Predictive Capabilities of the Alternative History Genre

This article deals with a specific literary genre - alternative history - and its predictive potential. Understanding the creative process as a reality of a different order (“heterocosmos” according to Alexander Baumgarten, “a model of the world” according to Yuri Lotman), the authors consider the situation when a writer consciously uses creative modelling for thought experiments aimed at comprehending the events of the big historical events. The material of the study is one of the first works in this genre - Mikhail Pervukhin’s novel “Pugachev Victorious” (1924). It shows how, through the construction of a hypothetical reality of the 18th century, Pervukhin reflects on the historical situation contemporary to him, building parallels to the events of the past. The novel takes place between 1773–1775. Pervukhin depicts a world in which Pugachev comes to power as a result of a fatal coincidence of circumstances (the accidental death of Empress Catherine and the heir Paul). The author uses a system of allusions to juxtapose the events of the novel with the October coup d’état. The finale of the novel is dictated not by the logic of artistic events and characters, but by the fact that the author seeks at least in the world he has created to return to the former Russia, thus promising his readers the restoration of the lost world of pre-revolutionary Russia. It is noteworthy that the first readers of the novel perceived its allusive nature, which reveals the features of the genre of alternative history as a collective reflection on historical choices.