The article explores two texts with the same title: the poem "Waiting for the Barbarians" by the Greek poet K. Cavafy and the novel by the contemporary South African writer J.M. Coetzee. Both texts are united by the common theme of civilization in its nonstandard comprehension and artistic decision. Using the same title, J.M.Coetzee deliberately creates an allusion to the poem of Cavafy, because he develops the concept of the Greek poet in his novel. If Cavafy describes a cultural world that has exhausted itself and lacks its own dynamic potential, then in the novel of J.M.Coetzee, a metropolis in a state of stagnation goes on asserting its priority position, through violence and cruelty. In the novel J.M. Coetzee appeals to the state of the modern world, in which false notions of civilization and barbarity continue to form the basis for the development of dramatic conflicts.