Mythopoetics of the Apocalyptic Story by A. Adamovich The Last Pastoral

<jats:p>The article is devoted to the analysis of the mythopoetic structure and the philosophical-anthropological issues in Ales Adamovich’s novella The Last Pastoral. The relevance of the study is determined by the growing scholarly interest in late Soviet works permeated with a profoundly tragic, apocalyptic pathos. The aim of the study is to examine the specificity of an artistic method atypical of the author and to analyze the ways in which the author’s apocalyptic worldview, as a response to the crisis of utopian discourse, is refracted in the compositional structure of the novella and its system of imagery. The novelty of the study lies in emphasizing the writer’s recourse to the arsenal of modernist poetics in order to construct a universal model of the apocalypse. Within the given tasks of the research the paper analyzes the mechanisms of deconstruction and inversion of key archetypal patterns, including the pastoral genre, the Robinson myth, and the cult of the Eternal Feminine. Particular attention is paid to the author’s engagement with Biblical imagery and narratives, which reveals his apocalyptic pathos (Cain and Abel, the Tower of Babel, the Judgment of Solomon). The study concludes that, through a system of inverted myths and archetypal images, Adamovich articulates his concept of the impending destruction of humanity: according to the author, the cause of global catastrophe is rooted in human nature itself, in its ineradicable “Cain-like” inclination toward violence and division, which renders any social or technological progress ultimately fatal and potentially capable of leading to universal annihilation.</jats:p>