The «Gentle Death» in the twilight of civilization as a futurological problem in the Russian 20th century literature

The paper is devoted to the process of forming a complex of predictive social fiction motifs marking the decline of the present civilization. Of these, the main ones are the stabilization of economic and social development, conservation of science and technology, ideology of easy, joyful death. The study has been based on the works of the Russian writers-nonfantasts of the 20th – 21th centuries.