ABSTRACT
The collection of articles, presented in this chapter, is concerned with the question of metaphorical representation of the cultures of memory in literature across time and distinct historical contexts. Each article identifies and brings to the fore the metonymic recovery of meanings, themes and evasive philosophical inquiries raised by Russian authors of the 19th and early 20th centuries in contemporary social and personal articulation of memory in Julian Barnes’s selected narratives. The aesthetic representation of a literary past raises questions not only about reliability of memory but also focuses on the creative narrative tensions between contradictory versions of the past and their evasive interplay.
