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Acknowledgements:

The research was carried out with support of a grant from the Russian Science Foundation (project no. 19-78-10100, https://rscf.ru/project/19-78-10100/) at IWL RAS.

Abstract:

The article considers E.N. Chirikov’s novel Family, which became the final part of the autobiographical tetralogy The Life of Tarkhanov (1911–1924), where the writer recreated the process of spiritual and moral development of an intellectual, whose youth came at the turn of 1880s–1890s. Chirikov was one of the first writers in Russian literature to demonstrate in this book that a male character can choose an alternative gender “role”, which is radically different from the traditional social role prescribed by the dominant idea of masculinity. In the first three parts of The Life of Tarkhanov Gennady Tarkhanov is passionate about revolutionary ideas, and then disappointed in them and tries to find his way in literature, i. e. his self-fulfillment takes place mainly in the external space, then in the novel Family this character renounces his high status of a well-known writer and public figure in favor of the family, that is, he chooses the traditionally “female” sphere of self-realization. Thus, Chirikov showed that the “microcosm” of the family is equally important for both genders and is the only protection in the disintegrating social “macrocosm”, engulfed in the fire of wars and revolutions at the beginning of the 20^th century.