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Victor Olegovich Pelevin undoubtedly belongs to the most popular contemporary Russian writers. He is recognized as one of the leading representatives of Russian postmodernism. The purpose of this article is to show distinguishing features and characteristics of Pelevin’s “non-human beings”: at first to discuss Pelevin’s “postmodernist and eclectic” conception of “supernatural creatures”: werewolves and vampires (Pelevin deconstructs “werewolf and vampire discourses”), and secondly, to show Pelevin’s point of view on human–robot relationships. The following Pelevin’s novels are the subject of the analysis in this paper: The Sacred Book of the Werewolf (2004), Empire “V”. The Story of a Real Superman (2006), S.N.U.F.F. (2011), Batman Apollo (2013).

The article describes the figures of a beast appearing in selected literary works against the background of the historical eras in which they were created. This makes it possible to analyse the symbolic layer of cultural topoi and thus identify the figure of the other depicted in such a monstrous manner that he becomes an inhumane phantom. Indicating the link between social reality and the fiction of the works of culture it creates makes it possible to explore the mechanisms of exclusion - which are guided by fear of the unknown, on the one hand, and allow self- -identification and gaining collective identity through opposition to what is monstrous, on the other hand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]