During the Soviet period the epic as a genre was at the forefront of attention for many writers producing long novels, especially if the subject involved military combat. In Soviet literature, two related but distinct versions of epic were most germane. The first was the classical tradition, particular features of which were appropriated for ideological purposes and for the cause of national aggrandizement. The second was the specific model of the epic novel to be found in Tolstoy’s War and Peace (1865–1869), itself an official model for Soviet literature. A complication here is that Tolstoy’s novel is indebted to the classical epic (as his own diary entries attest), yet its Second Epilogue takes issue with certain fundamental assumptions of the ‘epic’ view of history.

A similar ambiguity can be seen in the work of the four writers I will discuss here. Each of them produced epic novels which both challenge, and draw on, the kind of ‘epic’ exemplified by canonical Socialist Realism, and also both challenge and draw on the reworking of the epic tradition in War and Peace. I am treating in particular: Mikhail Sholokhov’s Quiet Flows the Don (Tikhii Don, 1928–1940); Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago (Doktor Zhivago, 1957); Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Cancer Ward (Rakovyi korpus, 1968), The First Circle (V kruge pervom, 1969), and August 1914 (Avgust chetyrnadtsatogo, 1989); and Vasilii Grossman’s For A Just Cause (Za pravoe delo, 1952) and its sequel Life and Fate (Zhizn´ i sud´ba, 1960/1980).

‘Life has become better,’ the Stalinist slogan of 1935 ran, ‘has become gayer.’ But is that really what happiness is about? All that jollity, all those ‘carnivals’ in Moscow's Gorky Park, and so forth, of those times did, in fact, make Soviet life ‘gayer’, more fun, for their brief duration; but happiness in general arguably refers to a state of longer duration, as when we say, ‘He or she has a happy marriage,’ or ‘X is happy in their job,’ etc. I would put happiness a register or two above contentment, but below bliss. Happiness is not about the ecstatic, but more about a fairly even, stable and positive state of being; perhaps about a sense of self-fulfillment.

As it happens, there has been a spate of books and articles on happiness lately, including a history of happiness. The consensus: sociologists have established that although people are living better now versus a few decades ago, they are less happy. Commentators are even proposing a new version of the guns-versus-butter dilemma; governments allegedly now have to choose between greater material well-being for their citizens and greater happiness. As we look at Stalinist Russia, we can see this alternative less as a dilemma than in terms of competing aims. On the one hand, the state sought to raise the standard of living, to increase the supply of creature comforts and consumer goods. But on the other hand, it was arguably more concerned with what it saw as self-fulfillment for its citizenry.

ENCOUNTER IN PARIS 1937

Without doubt, the centers of attention for visitors to the 1937 World's Fair in Paris were the German and Soviet pavilions, and to a lesser extent the Italian pavilion. They were perceived as they were projected: as well-designed symbolic constructions – true representations of their “systems.” Both represented different, even opposing and competing worldviews (Weltanschauungen), political orders, and systems. Yet, at the same time, the constructions were seen not only as rivals, but also as twins, deeply related to each other by virtue of their monumentalist and power-centered aesthetics. One Italian visitor even used the term “totalitarian.” An observer from Art Digest wrote in his report from Paris:

It seemed that even the topographical location of the exhibition halls evoked a comparative view. Every visitor entering the World's Fair in Paris had to pass the buildings, which stood directly opposite each other along the avenue leading from the Eiffel Tower to the Champs de Mars. Both dominated their environment.