The Duality of Max Frei: Problems of Identity in Contemporary Popular Russian Fiction

Abstract

Max Frei, whose given name is Svetlana Martynchik, is an important cultural phenomenon in the Russian sphere because she represents a growing push for change. Her approach is to question her reader’s identity by presenting challenges to the current reader-character relationship, as well as through her unique approach to the author-character relationship. In doing so, she questions the current definition of character and uses her creative works to demonstrate what she believes is most important: giving her characters life. For this work, I have studied ten of Frei/Martynchik’s interviews, available on her website, as well as Russian and English fandom websites such as fantlab.ru and Goodreads. Included in this work are four of her short stories, translated by me and available in Russian in the orange Russian Foreign Tales series, Books One, Four, and Six, to demonstrate her approach to the problems of identity in contemporary Russian fiction.