The problem of obscene language in literary texts (issues of stylistics, poetics, and the "truth of life")

The aim of this article is to dispel the contemporary myth regarding the necessity of obscene language in literary works as a means of realizing the "truth of life," drawing on the works of Maxim Gorky and representatives of 20th-century war and village prose. The research employs cultural-historical, descriptive-functional, and comparative methods. The author's position is evaluated on the basis of the axiological method. Concrete examples are provided from fragments of classical texts depicting conflictual or informal situations where profane swearing is described but not verbally expressed (M. Gorky's stories "Chelkash" and "The Watchman," the play The Lower Depths, K. Simonov's novel Days and Nights, V. Nekrasov's novel In the Trenches of Stalingrad, excerpts from V. Shukshin's film stories, and others). The question is raised concerning the reasons for the linguistic chastity of the classics, among which the problem of taboo occupies a determining place, shaping the textual level. The article analyzes the methods of avoiding unprintable vocabulary and their skillful variability, determined by a sense of taste, proportion, and stylistic sensitivity. The destruction of normativity in the 1990s is demonstrated through the example of V. Astafiev's novel Cursed and Killed and the reaction to it from colleagues and readers. The study concludes that the poetics of prohibition enhance the nobility of the author's image and their literary text while cultivating the reader's aesthetic sensibility. Lifting taboos does not equate to authenticity. Contemporary popular writers have abandoned the nobility of artistic expression. Obscene language in literature invariably signals a descent into spiritual degradation, verbal vulgarity, and moral flaws. It vulgarizes linguistic culture, erases boundaries between beauty and repulsion, traumatizes intellectual readers, and justifies the crassness of unrefined audiences. The reluctance of modern writers to replace obscenities with euphemisms or descriptive techniques, coupled with editors' refusal to substitute offensive vocabulary with ellipses, reflects a destructive publishing policy. Under the guise of "truth of life," this approach legitimizes profanity as a supposedly inherent linguistic identity, deliberately demeaning and discrediting Russian society. The author declares no conflicts of interests.