The Poetics of Catastrophism in Olga Tokarczuk’s Flights

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the poetics of catastrophism in Olga Tokarczuk’s novel «Flights». The study examines the semantic shift of the literary concept of catastrophe in the context of a globalized world, where it acquires an anthropogenic character and also emerges as a narrative structure that organizes the literary text. The theoretical framework is based on concepts of catastrophism developed in contemporary humanities, in particular the idea of a shift from an “explosive” model of the apocalypse to an entropic one associated with gradual decline and disintegration. The article argues that Tokarczuk’s novel gravitates precisely toward an entropic type of catastrophism, which is realized on different levels of the text. The fragmentary composition, the absence of a unified plot, and the nonlinear organization of reading reflect the internal entropy of the fictional world. At the same time, a tension between chaos and the impulse toward structuring becomes evident, manifested in motifs of cataloguing, cartography, museum collection, and plastination. These attempts at ordering do not overcome chaos but instead emphasize its fundamental inevitability. Particular attention is paid to the transformation of the mythologeme of water, which in the novel acquires an eschatological dimension associated with the threat of global catastrophe. Water functions as a metaphor for the erasure of differences and the blurring of semantic boundaries. The study also traces the functioning of apocalyptic motifs, ranging from religious representations of the Last Judgment to secular images of technological and psychological catastrophes. In conclusion, the article substantiates the thesis that catastrophism constitutes an aesthetic dominant of the novel, shaping its poetics, thematic organization, and philosophical dimension. The text constructs a world in which structure and chaos are in constant interaction, while the human being appears simultaneously as both the subject and the victim of global catastrophic processes.