| Summary: | The article sets out to analyse the evolution of the architectural image of
the future in Dostoevsky’s work. Two fundamental lines are identified –
the City and the Garden. Both are of Biblical origin. In Dostoevsky the
image of the City is from the very beginning the negative symbol of
possible social development in contrast to the Garden which, on the
basis of a perceived folk tradition, is presented as the positive image of
the autochthonous Russian utopia.
The analysis of the literary evolution of the two utopian images is then
extended to early 20th-century Russian literature. The dichotomy
between negative City and positive Garden proves to be clear in most
Russian writers with a few notable exceptions (Chayanov, Khlebnikov
and above all Platonov) who are orientated towards the difficult task of a
synthesis between the two.
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