M. Bulgakov, A. Akhmatova and N. Gumilev as Literary Characters in Contemporary Russian Fantastic Fiction

This paper discusses a new tendency in contemporary Russian fantastic
fiction: the transformation of the personalities of Russian writers and
poets into literary characters. The analysis shows similar patterns
of fantastic transformation in Bulgakov, Akhmatova and Gumilev.
These patterns include the use of the biographic and auto-biographic
myths about them, the transformation of their writings into storages of
compositional devices, plots, motifs and characters, which are freely
manipulated and projected onto their authors’ lives. Becoming literary
characters, they often continue to write fiction or poetry. The newly
created texts may enter into discussions with the texts-prototypes,
confirming, contesting and/or recreating them.