Retaliation of ressentiment and the legitimization of collaborationist values: From the “ego-document” “In Wartime” by R. Neratova to the novel “Valchen” by O. Gromova

The article analyzes the ways in which new historical young adult prose manages the past. These efforts result in an ontological “collapse”: the destruction of the national worldview in the consciousness of the growing generation. Value-oriented literature, which, at the author’s will, can lead to the formation of national self-awareness among the young readers – reflections on the Motherland, its fate, the mentality of the Russian people, their psychology and metaphysics, – acts as an element of the national “ontological defense”. The scientific originality of the research is due to the focus on the texts that previously did not receive attention in literary studies: the “ego-document” “In Wartime” by R. Neratova, used for contextual analysis of the novel “Valchen” by O. Gromova, has become a material for scientific research for the first time and has revealed certain aspects of the “management of the past” technique employed in contemporary young adult prose. The aim of the research is to determine axiological semiosis as an ethical category of the artistic, fundamentally significant for young adult prose about “difficult periods of Russian history”, which involves referring to the theses of the national cultural code, whose artistic representation is determined by the author’s value position. The research findings have shown: identifying a precedent text (in the axiological aspect) allows us to see young adult prose about “difficult periods of Russian history” as a tool in psycho-historical wars of memory. Real “ego-documents” of the era cannot be used in their authentic form for rewriting the cognitive historical matrix, as they are self-incriminating. The gradual incorporation of collaborationist values into fiction allows us to see how the technology of expanding the information and ethical limit works in the segment of children’s literature.