Civilizācijas un cilvēces attīstības ceļa kritika un intertekstualitāte Paula Bankovska romānā “Pasaules vēsture”

This article evaluates the most notable qualities of the final novel “World History” (Pasaules vēsture, 2020) by Latvian writer Pauls Bankovskis (1973–2020), focusing attention on the depicted destructive tendencies in the development of civilisation, as well as on a widely used technique of intertextuality. Bankovskis is considered a significant author of Latvian prose and developer of the short story and novel genre of the late 20th century and the first two decades of the 21st century. With his artistic thinking process and specific way of text creation, the writer incorporates postmodern orientation and contemporary liberal views in his literary works. However, throughout his creative career, a critical attitude towards the developmental trends of modern civilisation has become increasingly evident. That has led researchers of his works to repeatedly identify depressive and even apocalyptic elements in Bankovskis’s texts. These traits in particular intensity are depicted in his final novel “World History”, which echoes as a dystopian type of novel-warning. The variety of negativity and threats depicted throughout civilisation’s development in the novel is wide – climate change and catastrophes, pollution and the end of energy resources, totalitarianism and colonialism, the disappearance of minor languages and books, moral degradation, and declining birth rates. A literary text can be interpreted in multiple ways, providing considerable space for the reader’s independent thought. This article is one of the possible versions, and a secular one. The article carries out the subjective depiction of the source text’s meaning, in accordance with the democratic principles of hermeneutics, recognising the recipient of the text as a further developer of the fictional text’s meanings.