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Rybakov's Deti Arbata: Reintegrating Stalin into Soviet History
Sigrid McLaughlin
Journal:

Slavic Review / Volume 50 / Issue 1 / Spring 1991

Published online by Cambridge University Press:

27 January 2017, pp. 90-99

Print publication:

Spring 1991
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The Soviet reappraisal of Stalin that began in 1986 was initially manifest only in the cultural sphere, although more recently it has spread to other domains. Anatolii Rybakov's novel Deti Arbata played a decisive role in preparing the way for a reassessment of Stalin's legacy. Its publication was immediately recognized as “an event of enormous significance,” reflecting the hunger for history and the wish to dethrone Stalin. In fact, the novel became the symbol of glasnost. It is the first novel to portray Stalin as a major character, to draw his psychological and historical portrait, and to demythologize his image. Furthermore, it does so for the first time without khitroglasie. Portraying the first generation of Soviet citizens, the children of the Arbat, it introduces the theme of exile into Soviet literature and sketches the social relations and the social psychology of the people in 1934.

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