12.05.2016
Какой должна быть новая литература о Великой Отечественной войне
© 1997-2016 Независимая газета
RussianNezavisimaya Gazeta — “A Sidelong View: A Crisis of Concept”
12 May 2016
A Sidelong View: A Crisis of Concept
What should the new literature about the Great Patriotic War be like?
Sergei Shulakov
Literature about the Great Patriotic War is in a position that can be called unstable. The old concepts have grown worn out and have not finally disappeared only because of outside pressure, the persistent desire of European colleagues to turn obvious facts inside out and present the reverse side as the sole and indisputable truth. New approaches have not yet taken shape; those who reject the communist regime have not reconciled themselves to its military victories; and under these circumstances there can be no talk of creating new aesthetic phenomena.
Some publishers take the simple route of reissuing artistically indisputable examples of Soviet classics. Because of their high quality, these works do to some extent fill the gap in literature about the war, but that cannot be regarded as a literary process. It is at least encouraging that books are appearing which can help sustain the very spirit of Victory, now only faintly alive in contemporary literature.
Artillery officer Vladimir Gelfand, who left detailed diaries, responds to the war as a private individual confronting events he is powerless to influence and the imperfections of a great many people he is unable to correct. In this sense his diaries have something in common with the memoirs of poet and playwright Isai Kuznetsov, Once Upon a Time in the War, published for last year’s Victory anniversary. One might provisionally place such books in a category of wartime social criticism.
St Petersburg philologist Stanislav Venglovsky, who is of Ukrainian origin, focuses precisely on the attempts of a very young person, helpless under occupation, to affect circumstances of monstrous force. His novel has autobiographical features, and that is where its strength lies.
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