A Generation on Mushrooms: Mukhomor and Visions of Russianness in Victor Pelevin’s Generation P

Victor Pelevin's novel Generation P captures the zeitgeist of 1990s Russia and a generation searching for a new identity after the Soviet collapse. This analysis focuses on the overlooked role of the entheogenic fungus mukhomor. The novel uses mukhomor-induced hallucinations to ironize imperial narratives that sought to restore a mythical, authentic Russian past. It suggests that an authentically Russian future requires abandoning the very notion of Russianness, grounded in the genetic origin of mukhomor in the Russian hinterland, which enables a vision of the world devoid of symbolic order and all identities.

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Abstract

Abstract Victor Pelevin’s novel Generation P has attracted both popular and academic interest for its ability to capture the zeitgeist of Russia in the 1990s and a generation searching for a new identity in the ruins of the Soviet Union. However, one element has been largely ignored by scholars: the role of fungi and, specifically, the entheogenic mukhomor . Here we discuss the history of mukhomor in the Russian context and demonstrate how Pelevin’s representations of mukhomor advance the novel’s critique regarding the reinvention of Russia’s identity after the fall of the Soviet Union. We argue that via its mukhomor-induced hallucinations, the novel ironizes the imperial narratives which sought to restore a mythical but allegedly authentic Russian past. The novel plays with the idea that if there is a future that can qualify as authentically Russian, then it should be one where the very notion of Russianness is abandoned. What renders this future authentically Russian is the genetic origin of mukhomor in the Russian hinterland, the very element which enables a vision of the world as such , devoid of symbolic order and of all identities.