scholarly journals A Slap in the Face of Socialist Taste: The Novel "Nikolai Nikolaevich" by Yuz Aleshkovsky As a Contestation of the Rules of Socialist Realism

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Elżbieta Tyszkowska-Kasprzak

Yuz Aleshkovsky wrote the novel „Nikolai Nikolaevich” in the 1970s. For a long time, the work was disseminated in samizdat and it appeared in print for the first time only in 1980. Composed under the censorship conditions of socialist realism dominant in the arts, this work violates strict taboos imposed on subjects related to sexuality and stylistic solutions which exclude sub-normative vocabulary. In many aspects, the composition of the novel resembles the pattern of the production novel. At the same time, the writer negate the values propagated in the art of socialist realism: the main character is a former pickpocket, who built a comfortable life for himself as a sperm donor in a laboratory and talks about his professional achievements in a language saturated with profanity and elements of criminal jargon. The plot of the work is based on an amalgamation of components characteristic of ideologized literary texts with elements that were unacceptable in such texts. The introduction into the novel of the theme of corporality, and human sexuality, which was a taboo topic in socialist realist literature, introduces a major dissonance and induces produces a comic effect.

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-145
Author(s):  
İsmail Güllü

Yarım aşırı aşan bir geçmişe sahip Almanya’ya göç olgusu beraberinde önemli bir edebi birikimi (Migrantenliteratur) de getirmiştir. Farklı adlandırmalar ile anılan bu edebi birikim, kendi içinde de farklı renkleri de barındıran bir özelliğe sahiptir. Edebi yazını besleyen en önemli kaynaklardan biri toplumdur. Yazarın içinde yaşadığı toplumsal yapı ve problemler üstü kapalı veya açık bir şekilde onun yazılarına yansımaktadır. Bu bağlamda araştırma, 50’li yaşlarında Almanya’ya giden ve ömrünün sonuna kadar orada yaşayan, birçok edebi ve düşünsel çalışması ile Türk edebiyatında önemli bir isim olan Fakir Baykurt’un “Koca Ren” ve Yüksek Fırınlar” adlı romanları ile birlikte Duisburg Üçlemesi’nin son kitabı olan “Yarım Ekmek” romanında ele aldığı konu ve roman kahramanları üzerinden din ve gelenek olgusu sosyolojik bir yaklaşımla ele alınmaktadır. Toplumcu-gerçekçi çizgide yer alan yazarın, uzun yıllar yaşadığı Türkiye’deki siyasi ve ideolojik geçmişi bu romanda kullandığı dil ve kurguladığı kahramanlarda kendini göstermektedir. Romanda Almanya’nın Duisburg şehrinde yaşayan Türklerin yeni kültürel ortamda yaşadıkları çatışma, kültürel şok, arada kalmışlık, iki kültürlülük temaları ön plandadır. Yazar romanda sadece Almanya’daki Türkleri ele almamakta, aynı zamanda Türkiye ile hatta başka ülkeler ile de ilişkilendirmeler yaparak bireysel ve toplumsal konuları ele almaktadır. Araştırmada, romanda yer alan dini ve geleneksel unsurlar sosyolojik olarak analiz edilmiştir. Genel anlamda bir göç romanı olma özelliği yanında Yarım Ekmek romanında dini, siyasi ve ideolojik birçok yorum ve tartışma söz konusudur. Romandaki bu veriler, inanç, ritüel, siyaset ve toplumsal boyutlarda kategorize edilerek ele alınmıştır.  ENGLISH ABSTRACTReligion and identity reflections in literature of immigrant: Religion and Tradition in Fakir Baykurt’s novel Yarım EkmekThe immigration fact which has nearly half century in Germany have brought a significant literal accumulation (Migrantenliteratur) in its wake. This literal accumulation, which is named as several denominations, has a feature including different colours in itself. One of the most important source snourishing literature is society. Societal structure and problems that the writer lives inside, directly or indirectly reflect on his/her compositions. In this context, the matter of religion and tradition by way of the issue and fictious characters in the novel of Fakir Baykurt who went to Germany in her 50’s and lived in there till his death and who is a considerable name in Turkish literature with his several literal and intellectual workings; “Yarım Ekmek” which is the third novel of Duisburg Trilogy with “Koca Ren” and “Yüksek Fırınlar” are discussed sociologically in the study. The political and ideological past of the socialist realist lined writer in Turkey where he spent his life for a long time, manifest itself on the speech and fictious characters of novel. In the novel, themes of new Turks’ conflict, cultural shock, being in the middle, bi culturalism in their new cultural nature in Duisburg which is the city they live in. The writer not only deals with Turks in Germany but also personal and social subjects via comparing them to Turkey and even other countries. In the study, religious and traditional elements analyzed sociologically. Besides the speciality of being a migration novel in general, there are a lot of religious, political and ideological interpretations and discussions in the novel. These datum in the novel are examinated in the context of belief, ritual, politics and social categorisation. 


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 136-171
Author(s):  
Yuri M. Nikishov

The article attempts to understand the author’s attitude to the main character of the novel “Eugene Onegin” by Alexander Pushkin. For the first time, a complete picture of Onegin’s evolution is given. The author proves that the rapture of secular life is just his prehistory; that the search for self-determination of Pushkin’s hero begins with a blues (premature old age of the soul). Communication with Vladimir Lensky makes Onegin reflect on the meaning of life. The highest point of his searches is freedom and peace (at the level of interests of the circus circle). Thoughts on the Onegin’s hypothetical fate are not attempts “to complete” the novel ending, but this is a way to understand the hero more deeply. The poet himself gave an example of such hypothetical thoughts. The “Fragments from Onegin’s Journey” that violate the plot sequence, placed after the notes (end sign), with their tone create a hint in determining Onegin’s hypothetical fate.


2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 376-393
Author(s):  
Raquelle K Bostow

Abstract Eliette Abécassis’ La répudiée (2000) narrates a rare story of female mystical practice in the face of her impending repudiation from a Hasidic community, which excludes women from intellectual engagement with religious texts. Set in the fictionalised neighbourhood of Meah Shearim in Jerusalem, the novel’s main character, Rachel, faces a divorce under the law of halakhah when she fails to become pregnant after ten years of marriage. Yet, throughout the novel, Rachel asserts her own individualised spiritual practice by locating the ‘divine’ within the love that she shares with her partner, placing her on the path of mysticism. To articulate Rachel’s intuition of the divine within human relationships, I rely on French author Hélène Cixous’ secularised notion of the juifemme: a woman who rewrites sacred texts, conceives of a God detached from dogmatic religion, and locates the divine within the other and the self.


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel McGuire

In Mukhtar Auezov's 1942 novel Abai Zholy, socialism is an end anticipated not just by history but more specifically by Kazakh literary history. In his earlier scholarly writings, Auezov had presented Abai as a transformational figure in the emergence of written Kazakh literature. In the novel, Abai becomes not only a literary innovator but also a political reformist: Auezov's Abai is horrified by the harsh and feudalistic behavior of his father Qunanbai, a wealthy local leader, and finds companionship and inspiration in his encounters with a series of famous 19th century Kazakh aqyns (bards). Auezov thus used Abai Zholy to argue that Kazakh folk literature had always been animated by a spirit of social critique which, in its laments and desires, had anticipated the Soviet world. This paper compares these aqyns’ depiction in the novel first with Auezov's earlier scholarship on the 19th century and second with the content of the aqyns’ own surviving works. These ideas reflected both contemporaneous shifts in Soviet nationalities policy and the influence of socialist realist literary models, which commonly staged both literary history and generational conflicts as allegories of political change.


2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 1165-1181
Author(s):  
Thekla Musäus

In this article I analyse Russian and Soviet Karelian literary texts written in Finnish at the time and in the style of socialist realism, and Finnish poems, songs and novels of the same era, proposing the idea of a ‘Greater-Finland’. I turned my attention to the question of how the depiction, construction and use of borders is handled in the respective texts, and look to determine whether the opposed ideologies of Soviet Communism and Panfennism led to similar or different artificial results. This analysis proves that the texts of the two ideologies generally draw strict distinctions between the ‘heroes’ of their own side and the bad ‘Others’. Only the heroes of the plot are able to either cross borders or to establish new ones. While in the Soviet texts opponents of Soviet society inside the Soviet Union are depicted as foreign and separated through ideological, symbolic and topographical borders, the Karelians in the Finnish texts are suspected as a hybrid people, spoiled by their contact with the evil Russians.


Author(s):  
Valentyna Saіenko

The paper deals with a historical novel in verse by the celebrated modern Ukrainian writer Lina Kostenko, for the first time analyzing it totally in a synesthetic way — through the component of musicality (namely barcarole principle of poetic creativity). The folklore origins of barcarole in the world culture have been traced, as well as the peculiarities of the absorption of the genre by professional music and literature, especially Ukrainian. Formation of the genre in the creative work of the author of “Berestechko”, who is the poet of a special musical feeling, deserves special attention. Barcarole is one of the forms of modernity in the creative thinking of Lina Kostenko; it is a natural writer’s way of perceiving reality and transforming it into an aesthetic system of artistic work (both in poems and the novel in verse). Being inclined to poetically adopt chamber and solo musical genres, the poetess creates a special voice polyphony in “Berestechko”, where each sense construct of a modern unity, i. e. novel lyric epos and barcarole, sounds both separately and complementarily, and the part of a protagonist merges into “I” of a speaker. The compositional function of barcarole in “Berestechko” is the modeling of a central character of the text. It is hetman Bohdan Khmelnytskyi, spiritually undermined by the recent defeat. The barcarole elements are used for constructing the author’s version of this failure and its consequences, which spread around Ukraine as circles on water; absorbing a soothing rhythm of a song, which can cure the soul with love; shaping the architectonics of the text in the form of 'splashes'-'circles' with poly-functional titles and subtexts. In the genre structure of the novel, barcarole is essential both in the development of the theme and its stylistic implementation. In the unity of the work, one may notice “prelude”, the main part, and “postlude”, each part with its artistic sense. The images typical for a barcarole — water, boat, song, woman, love, etc. — are designed in accordance with the agrarian microcosm of the main character and its symbolic senses. Time flow, self-immersion, and love do not only spiritually heal hetman Bohdan Khmelnytskyi, but give his life a direction and endow his figure with grandeur. The neoromantic potential of barcarole and the novel in verse correspond well and join in the final coda about the unshakable courage and heroism of the Ukrainian warriors. 


The article deals with the way the figures of Author and Reader are represented in the plot of the novel “Kys” by T. Tolstaya. The discreditation of the figures is proved to have the features of postmodernist literature. In the novel events which are narrated about, occurred after atomic Explosion, which thrown off humanity in cultural and social evolution to late Stone Age. In this future exists race named “golubchiki” – mutants who were born after Explosion and who are spiritual degraded. The main character is Benedict. He rewrites texts allegedly written by the chief of represented society – Fedor Kuzmich Kablukov. Benedict is trying to interpret the written in his own way, which brings to birth of Reader, turning according to post-modernism into new “Dieu cache”. However Benedict’s intellection as the most “golubchiks” is primitive. The character invariably compares what is read to his own experience, his associations are concretely ignorant and remain within the framework of native environment. But Benedict himself fully believes in post-modern way that he is Reader, standing above Author. Demonstrative is also Benedict’s perception of Pushkin : he does not see in Pushkin anything sacral or mythological. In his opinion the poet is nothing but a common wooden statuette, engraved therewith by himself. So, Benedict is not the admirer but ingenuous maker, the creator of Pushkin, in other words, a God for his creation. There is also another “author” in the novel – Fedor Kuzmich, who takes the advantage of the situation when Author dies (all true authors have died before or after an Explosion). Kablukov recopies somebody else’s text zealously. Thereby usurping Author’s role, being only the typical scripter indeed, who have replaced the author in post-modern study. Accordingly, in the novel “Kys” already on the plotline level is designed post-modern situation of author’s death: all literary texts are written very long ago, in the modernity of “golubchiks” is nothing new created; the only “author” – Fedor Kuzmich appears to be just a scripter, who recopies another’s compositions. Author’s figure in that way turns into figment and is almost completely leveled. In “Kys” is also disconsidered the meaning of born Reader, who imagined himself Dieu cache, though he is not capable making any adequate interpretation of a text.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Liliya F. Bormusova ◽  
Dinara I. Rakhimov ◽  
Nailya N. Fattakhova

The current research is executed in the mainstream of psycholinguistics within which the theory of psychological types has been developing in the last decades. The analysis of an introspective psychological type is carried out in the article on the basis of an art discourse viewing which we are guided by the theory of the identity of K.G. Jung. On the material of the story by V.P. Aksyonov "Ticket to the stars" the introspective type of the personality is being investigated for the first time; it is represented by the personage of the graduate student Victor, the elder brother of the main character of the story – of Dimka. In general, being stereotypic, the analyzed character has a number of the individual traits latently pointing to his professional activity. For the description of structure of the core of a psychological type the typified and individual signs are revealed; the share of these signs in the formation of the studied psychological type is defined. The analysis was carried out with the application of the methods of synthesis and generalization.


Author(s):  
Anna Pidhorna ◽  
Olha Moiseienko

The article is devoted to the sociolinguistic aspects of studying the social status and its reflection in literary texts through the speech of fiction characters. Particular attention is paid to the description of the key concept «social status» as a constituent element of the literary character’s image as well as to the research of the ways the character and his/her linguistic peculiarities are represented in the literary text. It was hypothesized that the character’s social status, education level, and worldview in general must be explicitly seen through the speech the author ascribes to the character. The article deals with the novel «The Collector» by J. Fowles and focuses on analyzing the speech peculiarities of its main character, Miranda. Her language is full of various stylistic devices and expressive means, which also testifies how open-minded this personality is, proves her ability to listen and accept different points of view. Miranda’s speech can be described as extremely poetic and emotional. Concerning key linguistic features of her speech, both lexical and grammatical ones can play a role in defining the character’s social status. The article also studies and analyzes the ways of reproducing the stylistic features in the Ukrainian translation of the novel made by G. Yanovska.


2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-294
Author(s):  
B. Smanov ◽  
◽  
Z. Kuttybayev ◽  
Y. Abdimomynov ◽  
◽  
...  

This article analyzes the theoretical and practical aspects of the creation the author`s image in the novel "Ai and Aisha" of the national writer of Kazakhstan, the holder of the State Prize - Sherkhan Murtaza, the heroism of the main character Baryskhan in the difficult times of the 1930 years of the 20th century was revealed through the hard destiny of the family, which called "Public Enemy". The character of the hero, his dreams and his actions are defined within social and public contradictions. Baryskhan is the descendant of noble family, who his father Murtaza was arrested at the 1937 year on fraudulent charges of "Public Enemy", and Baryskhan worked in the collective farm trying to take care of his younger brothers and mother, who was left without support. Baryskhan had been struggling for a long time to people, such as Tasbet,who is threatening his family and threatens violence at all times and Baryskhan became an outstanding figure. The image of Baryskhan becomes clear through these sinister events and becomes a realistic image.


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