The Fabric of Time: Maria Stepanova and the Language of Memory in Post-Soviet Russia

Abstract

Since the 1990s, Maria Stepanova has established herself as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Russophone literature. Born in 1972, her work moves freely between poetry, essay, and prose fiction, creating a hybrid space in which different forms of memory, tradition, and experimentation coexist. Her writing does not simply narrate events; it organizes a space for observing the past—both family and collective history—marked by displacements, gaps, and interruptions that make any homogeneous reconstruction impossible. In her novels, Stepanova mobilizes family archives, photographs, and minor biographies; in her poetry, dense intertextual layers range from classical tradition to the avant-gardes and the Soviet experience. In a present marked by the return of war, her poetics highlights the fragility of historical knowledge and memory.