In the Last Days (An Eschatological Fantasy) (Russian: В последние дни (эсхатологическая фантазия)) is a 1920 novel by Lev Tikhomirov (first published decades later).
It's Exactly What It Says on the Tin: drawing heavily from The Book of Revelation, it's a story of the last days of the world before the Second Coming of Christ.
Antioch The Antichrist has achieved sovereign power on Earth and now wants to lead a war on Heaven. For that purpose, he needs steadfast, courageous and strong soldiers, and he sees his own devoted lickspittles aren't exactly that material. He decides he needs to lure his enemies to his side or brainwash them into joining him. Things steadily grow From Bad to Worse as his regime goes from persecution of Christians to mercilessness towards just about everyone.
Tropes featured in the novel:
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: In the ending, the virtuous characters are on their way to ascend to the Kingdom of Heaven.
- Back from the Dead: In accordance with the Orthodox teaching, all the dead are resurrected at the Second Coming of Christ, so Lydia and Valentin are reunited with their martyred friends.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Apollonius's battalions are made of people brainwashed to zombie-like levels. He plans to use them to attack Heaven.
- Celibate Hero: Many people decide to live in celibacy as the conditions on Earth grow steadily worse.
- Chastity Couple: Valentin and Lydia are in love but decide to keep their relationship platonic, unwilling to think about sex when the world's ending and most definitely unwilling to bring children into a land ruled by Antioch.
- Children Are Innocent: The children of Lydia's shelter are so pure-hearted in their innocence that they can see angels and Heaven even before the Second Coming.
- Courtly Love: In the end, Jani is happy just to protect Lydia's shelter and fight against Antioch's soldiers in her name.
- Crapsack World: By the end of Antioch's rule, Earth has become a horrible place for everyone. Christians and other persecuted groups are forced to flee into hiding and survive on berries and roots, but Antioch's supporters have it even worse, since the boundless hedonism promoted by his regime takes its toll on people's physical and psychological health, violent crime is on the rise with the police looking the other way, and the squabbles between the different factions of Antioch's government escalate into devastating wars.
- Defiant to the End: The Christian martyrs towards Antioch. Edward, when offered complete health and full pardon in return for accepting Antioch as a man-god, praises Jesus instead and tells Antioch he'll burn in hell, even though he knows he'll be instantly killed after that (and he is).
- Dressing as the Enemy:
- To help Christians avoid capture, Mark forges the Antichrist's mark, printing tens of thousands of signs superficially resembling it but actually containing Christian symbols. If one doesn't look too closely, one can mistake such a sign for the actual mark.
- Jani's guerrillas rescue a hundred of Christian children from a state-controlled orphanage by disguising themselves as officers of the government (the resemblance is only slight, but the guerrillas take the children away quickly before the supervisors realize the deception).
- Dude Magnet: In her university days, Lydia had Valentin, Edward, Jani, Apollonius and Antioch all crushing on her to various degrees. Even now, Valentin and Jani are devotedly in love with her.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: The virtuous characters live through literally the most tyrannical and cruel regime possible (some of them, indeed, are executed, often in highly painful ways), but end up among the saved at the Last Judgment and will live forever in the Kingdom of Heaven.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Phryne would have been a completely amoral woman otherwise, but she genuinely loves her father.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: When Jani begs Antioch to spare Lydia from the tortures, Antioch thinks he wants her as a Sex Slave. The idea that Jani wishes Lydia to be set free doesn't occur to Antioch until the former spells it out for him.
- Evil Former Friend: Valentin, Lydia, Edward, and Jani were all good friends with Antioch and Apollonius in their Sorbonne days. They lampshade it several times.Edward: How I would have laughed in Sorbonne, had anyone told me I was listening to the lectures on the same bench as the Antichrist.
- Faux Affably Evil: Antioch and Apollonius present themselves as charming and all-loving, but are ruthless and bloodthirsty when it comes to their enemies and completely disdainful when it comes to their followers.
- Foregone Conclusion: It's a Christian novel based on The Book of Revelation, so the ultimate failure of Antioch's plan to conquer both Earth and Heaven is more or less a given.
- Happily Married: Unlike Valentin and Lydia, Beta Couple Mark and Esther get married and manage to have a happy and fulfilling married life despite the horrific regime.
- Hold the Line: Jani vows to Lydia that no soldier of Antioch's would come near her shelter for as long as there's at least one man alive in Jani's guerrilla groups. He keeps his word up until the world's end, fiercely fighting to throw the government battalions away.
- Ignore the Fanservice: Antioch entirely ignores the seductive beauties who try to impress him.
- In Name Only: Antioch restores the Knights Templar, but they have little to do with the original order save for the name and partly the uniform design.
- Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Lydia won't let herself get either bullied, lured, or brainwashed into denying Christ, whatever tortures Apollonius thinks up for her.
- Kavorka Man: Apollonius is balding and pudgy but extremely popular with the ladies. Being a mighty sorcerer and The Dragon to the absolute ruler of Earth to boot, of course, helps.
- Love Redeems: Jani goes from Antioch's most faithful soldier to devout Christian thanks to his love for Lydia.
- Meaningful Name: Phryne, Apollonius's beautiful Dark Mistress, is named after a famous Ancient Greek hetaira
. - Multinational Team: Only among the more or less major heroic characters, Lydia, Valentin, Ivan and Bishop Augustine are Russian, Maria is a Palestinian Arab, Edward is English, Jani is Albanian, Franz is Czech, Father Vicentius is Polish, Hugo is French, and Mark and Esther are Jewish.
- Orphanage of Fear: In state-controlled orphanages, the supervisors try to brainwash and/or bully the Christian children (whose parents get murdered by Antioch) into rejecting their faith.
- Orphanage of Love: Lydia's shelter was primarily organized as a hiding-place for children whose parents were killed by Antioch. Although there's little physical comfort (not for any fault of Lydia's: there's little physical comfort left in the world in general), she surrounds the children with as much love and care as she can.
- Sanity Slippage: Phryne descends into madness after her father is killed.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy:
- Jani attempts to kill Antioch and nearly cuts his head apart. But Apollonius heals him, in exact accordance with the prophecy about the beast's deadly wound being healed and the entire world worshiping the beast even more fervently afterwards.
- Antioch knows himself to be the beast from the Book of Revelation, but he is certain that the part where the beast, having gathered armies to fight against Heaven, gets defeated by God is mere wishful thinking. What does he do? He gathers armies to fight against Heaven. Just like the Book of Revelation said, he is defeated instantly.
- Straight Edge Evil: Although Antioch encourages and promotes hedonism, he leads a very ascetic and moderate life himself.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The heroes are all either name-dropped as being among the saved or can be reasonably supposed to be there, and Antioch and Apollonius are definitely thrown into a lake of fire. The fate of Phryne, Larmenius and Angelo, last seen in an Alas, Poor Villain scene with Larmenius and Angelo brutally killed and Phryne succumbed to madness, however, remains ambiguous.
- Worthy Opponent: Antioch knows that those who fight against him are much more honorable and brave than most of his weak-willed supporters (which is the chief reason for him kidnapping his enemies for the Brainwashed and Crazy elite battalions). He also acknowledges St. John the Apostle's prophetic gift in regards to the Book of Revelation (except, he thinks, for the last parts).
