The contents of the collection reflect the program of the international conference “The Absurd and Slavic Culture of the 20th Century,” which took place in October 2001 at the University of Zurich, bringing together representatives of a wide variety of scientific disciplines. One of the main objectives of the collection is to describe the phenomenon of absurdity (worldview, logical, artistic) in the culture of the 20th century against the background of modern theoretical discourse about the absurd, to show its interdiscursive and intercultural nature. In this regard, the title we have chosen, “The Absurd and Around,” is to some extent a polemical reference to the collective work “Around the Absurd: Essays on Modem and Postmodern Drama,” the authors and compilers of which limited the understanding of the absurd only to the sphere of theatrical art. The collection is intended for specialists in literary criticism, philosophy, art history and cultural theory, as well as a wider range of readers interested in issues of the absurd in culture.