The Memory of the Earth and the Sky

This article by Michel Niqueux offers a literary and theological study of the work of Valentin Rasputin, a Siberian writer representative of the Soviet "peasant literature" of the 1960s-1970s. Through a close reading of the principal narratives — *Farewell to Matyora*, *The Last Term*, *Live and Remember* —, the author shows how Rasputin goes beyond simple rural nostalgia to reach a metaphysical reflection on the soul, death, memory, and human responsibility. The central idea is that memory — of ancestors, of the land, of God — constitutes the ontological foundation of existence and the condition of all spiritual and social restoration. The theological contribution of the article lies in the highlighting of the patristic and Orthodox resonances of this work: man as microcosm and *microtheos*, the sacramentality of the cosmos, *metanoia*, and the female figures interpreted in the light of Evdokimov's theology.