There will pass a time and the heroes of our time will be forgotten. Folk memory will not leave a trace of their names and their lives' deeds. Time will erase the details and memories will disappear but the legend will live on. It will preserve in itself what the memory cannot hold onto. Passed from generation to generation it will absorb into itself the living power of folk creativity and will rise to its peak - EPOS.
Isn't it the way it always was? Tales and sagas contain the narrative of time gone as well as time to come. It keeps alive the undying folk dream of common happiness and prosperity.
THUS RISING ABOVE SAGA, EPOS CARRIES AWAY INTO THE FAIRY TALE.
The fairy tale gives heroes new names and ascribes to them miraculous qualities, which reflect hopes of all people and the immortalized heroes of EPOS are reborn to HEROISM and to leadership of the people. And this is the right way, because only in fairy tale is the whole truth told about what is hidden in the historic events and from the eyes of the historians.
So, wouldn't it be better to begin the process of mythologizing the heroes without procrastinating, since the people will do it anyway, only a little later. And isn't it more correct to mythologize the heroes during their lifetime?
Such an attempt was already realized through the art of "social realism" and it lead to demythologizing of heroes which is reflected in the "SotzArt" and the anecdotes. However, this does not preclude the possibility of further mythologizing of the demythologized heroes; quite the opposite - it points to the fact that the heroes, mythologized in their lifetime, turned out to be the brightest manifestations of their time and in no way inferior to the other mythological heroes, perhaps even surpassing them, destined to be mythologized after their historical death.
Therefore we have to conclude that the process of posthumous mythologizing of heroes has a rule defined by a certain lapse of time similar to the conception and birth of a child. In other words, the point of discussion should be the realism of the mythological process. It should be admitted that at the base of any myth lies not just a concrete reality, but a reality of the timeless order that comes from the future as far away as the lapse of time required for forgetting of the historical truth.
The art that could be called "MYTHOLOGICAL REALISM", deals with events and heroes of the past and has their mythologizing as its goal. It emanates from the future clairvoyantly and influences the present prophetically. That is what principally differentiates it from the artificial modeling of reality, which turns out to be utopia, because:
UTOPIA IS A SHORT-TERMED REALITY WITH CATASTROPHIC CONSEQUENCES.

Alexandr Shnurov
© 2001