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Themes in Recent Soviet Russian Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

George Gibian
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Extract

When I looked over the notes I had made in the margin of Professor Erlich’s article, most of them were check marks and exclamations such as “Yes,” “Very important,” and “Amen.”

His emphases, conclusions, and observations along the way move me to agreement and fill me with admiration and envy. He has said what I should have liked to say. I therefore can only add that this is an excellent and important analysis, and then do two things: sketch in some related areas, not in opposition but in supplementation of what Professor Erlich has written; and make some minuscule objections. As for the last, they will be found grouped below in a long “Ungenerous Footnote of Picky Points.”

Type
Discussion
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , September 1964 , pp. 420 - 431
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1964

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References

1 (1) I am leery of the frequently heard idée recue that Russia is puritanical. Prudish, yes; puritanical—no. I do not have room to develop this; but basically ”puritan“ means to me ”averse to and suspicious of pleasure and joy,“ and this the Russians are not. Reticence need not be puritanism; it can even indicate the opposite, just as being loud about sex may be puritan. (2) Dudintsev's New Year's Tale seems to me far from first-rate, but it is a startling and important work in its attempt to mingle fantasy with realistic description—even though it does so sophomorically. (3) I am not sure Khrushchev's speech boomeranged. Where? How? It seems to me to have performed its function. Khrushchev was playing with fire, but I see no burns on his fingers. (4) Criticism of the bureaucratic establishment is not sweepingly blocked by the regime. All depends on what is being criticized and how. The regime even inspires and encourages certain kinds of such attacks. (5) Dudintsev does give the devil his due—perhaps more than his due. Attacking the essence of what Drozdov stands for, he shows respect for the efficiency and drive of Drozdov, just as Ehrenburg did for Zhuravlev's ability to bounce back on his new job. Soviet authors, even the critical ones, seem to have an admiration for efficient (even inhuman, villainous) factory managers, reminiscent of the proverbial village girls’ love for hussars. The finale of Not by Bread Alone, moreover, is clearly ambiguous. It is difficult to see how anyone could have read it as a clear-cut victory for Lopatkin—it is so far from that.

2 Translated from the Russian text published by the University of Michigan Press, n.d., p. 402.

3 (), No. 10, 1963, pp. 2-13, and No. 1, 1964, pp. 39-46.

4 In Stephen Gary's translation, The Don Flows Home to the Sea (New York: Signet Books, 1940), p. 403. For the Russian text, see the text of () (Moscow: Biblioteka Ogonek, 1946), IV, 83.

5 (), No. 2,1963, p. 47.

6 I gave a fuller account of the conference in the article ”The Personal Realm Versus the Official,“ New Republic, Feb. 13, 1961, pp. 11-14.

7 (), No. 9, 1962, pp. 123-24 and 131-33.

8 Teamp, No. 11, 1962.

9 (), May 21, 1964, p. 3.