Abstract
Our study of some of the main works of historical fiction published in Russia since 1985 and the critical debates they have inspired raises a number of interesting questions about the nature of history, literature and politics in contemporary Russia. Since the process of reassessing Russian history and literature and rebuilding a new society is still continuing, any conclusions offered here can only be tentative and provisional.
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Notes and References
A. Kabakov, Nevozvrashchenets, Iskusstvo kino, no. 6 (1989);
V. Rybakov, Hassle, Glas: New Russian Writing, no. 1 (1991);
L. Petrushevskaya, Novye Robinzony, NM, no. 8 (1989). By a remarkable coincidence, the film of A. Kabakov’s Nevozvrashchenets depicting a military coup was shown on Soviet television on 20–1 August 1991. Another anti-utopian work was Vladimir Makanin, Laz, NM, no. 5 (1991), which made the Booker Prize shortlist in 1992.
See R. W. Davies, Soviet History in the Gorbachev Revolution (London, 1989 ), pp. 167–84.
See, for example, Yu. Korablev, I. Fedosov and Yu. Borisov, Istoriya SSSR: uchebnik dlya desyatogo klassa srednei shkoly (M., 1989), published in 3,110,000 copies.
Joseph W. Turner, ‘The Kinds of Historical fiction: An Essay in Definition and Methodology’, Genre (Oklahoma), vol. xii (Fall 1979), pp. 337, 342.
For criticism of this episode, see A. Latsis, ‘S tochki zreniya sovremennika: zametki o romane ‘Deti Arbata—, Izvestiya (17 August 1987 );
J. Barber, ‘Children of the Arbat’, Détente, no. 11 (1988), pp. 9–11.
V. Danilov, ‘Tret’ya volna’, VI, no. 3 (1988), pp. 21–4. For a different view, see D. Gillespie, ‘History, politics and the Russian Peasant: Boris Mozhaev and the collectivization of agriculture’, SEER, vol. 67, no. 2 (April 1989), p. 203, n. 29.
A. Nove, ‘How many victims in the 1930s?’, ibid., p. 370; for a review of the western literature by a Russian scholar, see V. Danilov, VI, no. 3 (1988), pp. 116–2I.
V. P. Danilov, Pravda, (16 September 1988 ).
See above, p. 305, n. 61; V. Tsaplin, ‘Statiatika zhertv stalinizma v 30e gody’, VI, no. 4 (1989), p. 176; discussed in E. Bacon, ‘Glasnost and the Gulag: New Information on Soviet Forced Labour around World War II’, Soviet Studies, vol. 44, no. 6 (1992), pp. 1075–7.
See, for example, O. Chaikovskaya, ‘Dostoinstvo vyshe politiki’. LG (21 October 1992 ), p. 11.
E. Rzhevskaya, ‘Goebbels. Portret na fone dnevnika’, NM, (1993) nos 2–3.
See, for example, T. Ivanova, ‘Kto chem riskuet’, Ogonek, no. 24 (1988), p. 12;
A. Rybakov, ‘U menya net drugogo vykhoda…’, DN, no. 9. (1989), p. 264.
O. Ermakov, Znak zverya, Znamya, nos 6–7 (1992).
M. Kharitonov, Linii sud’by, iii Sunduchok Milashevicha, DN, nos 1–2 (1992).
V. Makanin, Stol, pokrytyi suknom i s grafinom poseredine, Znamya, (1992); discussed in V. Shokhina, NG (16 December 1993 ), p. 1;
K. Kedrov, Izvestiya, (16 December 1993), p. 6.
E. Popov, Nakanune nakanun (1993), discussed in G. Chuprinin, Znamya, no. 9 (1993), pp. 181–8.
G. Baklanov, cited in M. Rubantseva, RG (18 November 1992), p. 4: A. Ageyev, Znamya, no. I (1993), p. 19;
G. Chuprinin, Znamya, no. 9 (1993), pp. 181–8.
K. Stepanyan, ‘Nedoskazannoe. K itogam literaturnogo goda’, Znamya, no. 1 (1993), p. 198.
Stepanyan, Znamya, no. 1 (1993), p. 196; Chuprinin, Znamya, no. 9 (1993), pp. 181–8.
For this criticism, see V. Toporov, ‘Dnevnik “Literatora” No. 6’, Literator, no. 13 (April 1991), p. 3.
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© 1995 Rosalind Marsh
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Marsh, R. (1995). Conclusion. In: History and Literature in Contemporary Russia. St Antony’s Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230377790_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230377790_14
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