What is the Russian “elemental” construction (of the type vetrom sorvalo kryšu ‘the roof was ripped off by the wind’) about?

The so-called “elemental” construction (of the type vetrom sorvalo kryšu ‘the roof was ripped off by the wind’ or soldata ranilo pulej ‘the soldier was wounded by a bullet’), also known as Adversity Impersonal, is one of the most enigmatic impersonal constructions in Russian. Although this construction has attracted the attention of researchers since the 19th century, no proposed analysis encompasses morphosyntactic, lexico-semantic, and pragmatic aspects of its use. This paper suggests an analysis of this construction as a marked morphosyntactic structure signaling deviation from prototypical causation. The causative analysis leads to a holistic understanding of the construction, including metaphorical uses and other atypical cases. All conclusions are based on empirical evidence.