Article

Name: THE IDEOLOGICAL AND AESTHETIC FEATURES OF THE VSEVOLOD IVANOV’S NOVEL “LENIN AVENUE” (“PROSPECT IL’ICHA”) AS A FACT OF “RETURNED LITERATURE”

Authors: L. P. Yakimova

Institute of Philology of the Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

In the section Literary Life of the Plot

Abstract: The article is devoted to the novel by Vsevolod Ivanov “Lenin Avenue”, written by him in 1942. The plot of the novel unfolds against the background of the events of the great Patriotic war. The article is the first scientific work devoted to the late-published novel by Ivanov. The ideological and aesthetic connection with the previous novel by Vsevolod Ivanov “Volcano”, which was conceived and written on the eve of the Second World War, is considered in detail. The fate of both novels was dramatic: both novels were first printed on archival materials only after the writer’s death. The novel “Volcano” was published in 1966, and “Lenin Avenue” only in 2016. Both novels were published in the magazine “Siberian lights”. The creative history and history of the failed publication of the novel “Lenin Avenue” are considered in the article on the basis of the diary of Vsevolod Ivanov published in 2001. The author shows the historicism of the writer’s artistic thinking and the depth of his thoughts, which were not in tune with the dynamic time of the military storm. Despite the fact that both novels are associated with the poetics and aesthetics of socialist realism, the individual features of the style and the historical concept of the novel made publication impossible. Features of similarity and difference with Ivanov's sketches of wartime which were printed on pages of the Soviet Newspapers are shown. Ivanov's experience is considered in the broad context of fiction and propaganda literature of the time when the novel “Lenin Avenue” was conceived and created (I. Ehrenburg, K. Simonov, V. Lebedev-Kumach). It is convincingly shown that the novel was ahead of its time, and is associated with the literature about the war, which was created in the following decades (V. Nekrasov, B. Polevoj, “lieutenant’s prose”). The work on the novel reflected the writer’s idea of the need for an urgent creation of a great novel that would reproduce the features of the wartime, and would combine the task of propaganda propaganda with elements of historical analysis and forecast. The General mechanisms of the phenomenon of “returned literature”, the peaks of which fell on the years of “ottepel’” and “perestroika” are shown on the particular example of the novel “Lenin Avenue”. The novel “Lenin Avenue” is considered in connection with other books of the writer (“Kremlin” and “U”), not published in due time, and books of other Soviet writers who reached the reader many years after their creation.

Keywords: “returned literature”, vsevolod ivanov, war literature, motivic thesaurus, subtext, symbolism, socialist realism

Bibliography:

Ivanov Vs. Vulkan: Povest’. Publ. by T. V. Ivanova. Sibirskie ogni [Siberian Lights], 1966, no. 6, p. 8–90. (in Russ.)

Ivanov Vs. Dnevniki [Diaries]. Moscow, IMLI RAN; Nasledie, 2001, 492 p. (in Russ.)

Ivanov Vs. Vulkan: Povest’. Publ. and comment. by L. V. Sumatokhina. In: Neizvestnyj Vsevolod Ivanov: Materialy biografii i tvorchestva [Unknown Vsevolod Ivanov: Materials of biography and creativity]. Moscow, IMLI RAN, 2010, p. 296–344. (in Russ.)

Ivanov Vs. Prospekt Il’icha: Roman. Publ. by I. A. Makhnanova; introduce by E. A. Papkova (Ivanova). Sibirskie ogni [Siberian Lights], 2016, no. 7, p. 99–124; no. 8, p. 117–152; no. 9, p. 95–132; no. 10, p. 105–159; no. 11, p. 95–154; no. 12, p. 139–161. (in Russ.)