Invented Truth - Soviet Reality and the Literary Imagination of Iurii Trifonov

In the "years of stagnation" before glasnost changed the cultural map of the Soviet Union, Iurii Trifonov (1926-1981) defied the rules of censorship. In Invented Truth, Josphine Woll examines how, within the repressive artistic and political constraints of the Soviet publishing world, Trifonov managed not only to write on controversial tropics such as Soviet history but even to achieve and maintain popular status in doing so.Woll analyzes the aesthetic strategies Trifonov deployed to transmit his ideas and opinions to Soviet readers and elucidates the major themes of his late fiction: the moral climate that permitted the triumph of Stalinist immorality, the relationship between the Bolshevik revolutionary past and present-day Soviet amorality, and, finally, art's prismatic interpretation of reality. Drawing on both Western and Soviet scholarship, as well as interviews with many Soviet and emigre writers, literary critics, and personal acquaintances of Trifonov, Woll provides detailed background on the Soviet literary milieu and the rules governing literary production.

List of contents

Acknowledgments vii

A Note on Transliteration ix

Introduction 1

I. Preparations 17

Themes

II. Young Men 35

III. Old Men 53

Strategies

IV. Pressures 75

V. Narration 81

VI. Byt 101

VII. The Alchemy of Art 119

Conclusion 137

Notes 143

Selected Bibliography 161

Index 167

About the author

Josephine Woll

Summary

Examines the relationship of a major Soviet writer and his environment.

Product details

• Authors: Josephine Woll, Woll, Josephine Woll
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.07.1991
• EAN: 9780822311515
• ISBN: 978-0-8223-1151-5
• No. of pages: 180
• Dimensions: 169 mm x 227 mm x 20 mm
• Weight: 499 g
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > Slavonic linguistics / literary studies; Non-fiction book > Politics, society, business > Biographies, autobiographies; Russisch, Literature - Classics / Criticism, LITERARY CRITICISM / Russian & Former Soviet Union