Linguistic processes reflecting social-and-cultural transformations of recent years have drawn close attention of a number of contemporary Russian writers to axiology and ontology of the language and the word. Certain concern about that repeatedly eventuates in a number of works by A.V. Ivanov (“Geograf globus propil”, “Obschaga na krovi”, “Psoglavtsy” [“A Geographer Swapped the Globe for Drink”, “A Hostel on Spilled Blood”, “The Dogheaded”]). In his novel “Bluda i MUDO” [“A Bawd and the JOINT”] he explicates the ‘verbal crisis’ of the modern Russian, which springs from estrangement of the word from the meaningful content and acts. On the imagery level, this tendency is manifested through mock-adventurous, satirical plots, in which the nonexistent pretends to stand for the real. In the novel “Pishcheblok” [“A Cook-shop”], such a crisis realizes itself via the clash of categories of the ‘correct’ and the ‘real’, where the ‘correct’ stands for ‘abnormal’. In his historical novel-mystery “Letoischisleniye ot Ioanna” [“A Chronologie from Ioannes”], the word’s power comes not from its meaning, but instead from the performative act of naming of an evil deed. The article emphasizes the particular relevance of this aspect of the concept of language inherent in Aleksei V. Ivanov’s writing.