Many researchers of Lyudmila Petrushevskaya’s works draw attention to the irony which is the significant element of her prose, drama and poetry. It is important that the ironic principle manifests itself not only as an artistic technique but also as a philosophical aspect. Irony demonstrates the ambivalence of reality. On the one hand, it ridicules and profanes everything. On the other hand, irony gives the certitude of the ontological status of reality. We can see a good example of this function of irony in the novel Nas ukrali. Istoriya prestupleniy (2017). This novel shows the common features of Petrushevskaya’s works – the unity of ironic potential and language. In this case, language is not only the style but first of all the ontological element. This is why the language becomes almost a character in Petrushevskaya’s novel. Irony opens the vital potential of the linguistic personality. As a result, one of the heroes imitates foreign speech but doesn’t speak a foreign language. Irony also helps to reveal the ambivalent nature of life. It shows that our “umora” in Sanskrit and in ancient Indian is “humour” and “death”. So, the game and profanity not only reduce the status of the hero, the image, or the reader’s expectations but, first of all, fill the gap between words, ideas, feelings, and people.
The article gives us some insight into the subsequent phases of development of contemporary Russian dramaturgy, which is illustrated by works of selected authors. For over two decades a new generation of playwrights has entered literature and it is this generation that is setting the trend in this sphere. The changes began with the journalistic drama by Mikhail Shatrov, whose debut was still in the Soviet times, and his follower was Aleksandr Buravskiy. The works of Vladimir Voinovich and close to it Joseph Brodsky’s dramaturgy stay on the border of journalist drama and psychological drama of manners. However, the forerunner of new drama was created by Lyudmila Petrushevskaya who preceded the dramaturgy of Alexei Schipenko, Nikolai Kolada, Maria Arbuzova. Further changes of dramatic form could be observed in plays by Yevgeni Grishkovets, Ivan Vyrypajev, the Presnyakov brothers who already belong to a new generation of playwrights.
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