Alexey Konakov’s Chess Dystopia in the Novel “Tabiya Thirty-two”

The article introduces the latest literary material into scientific circulation – the novel by A. Konakov’s “Tabiya Thirty-Two” (2024). The futurological dystopia about Russia in the 2080s and the university environment of St. Petersburg models and critically explores the national mythology of total chess harmony as a state concept that does not tolerate arbitrary moves and alternative scenarios. The artistic finds in the character system were the images of orthodox adherents of “traditional chess values” and “heretical” intellectuals who pave risky paths of free scientific and social thinking.