Article

Name: Dreams about the Future in Vsevolod Ivanov’s Prose 1920–1930s

Authors: E. A. Papkova

A. M. Gorky Institute of the World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russian Federation

In the section Vsevolod Ivanov. Literature of Siberia

Abstract: The article considers the ideological and aesthetic role of dreams about the future in the works of Vsevolod Ivanov of different years. Already in the legend “Yermak’s dream” (1916) defined semantic constants, which will be characteristic for dreams about the future in the stories “The Accident on the River Thun” (1925) and “A strange case in the Warm Lane” (1935), as well as in the diary records 1937 and 1938. The future is characterized by an extraordinary technical takeoff, which, however, does not bring with it the spiritual development of people: the struggle of ideological opponents continues, it becomes even more merciless. It is significant that presented in the story “The Accident on the Thun River” the image of the future in the perception of the hero-narrator essentially differs from the «good life» that male-partisans dream in the “Partisan stories” of the writer. Revealed real context storytelling – the events of 1919 in Siberia, a witness and participant which was V. Ivanov, – partly explains the features of sinister dystopia inherent the image of the future. In the 1930s, despite the active participation of V. Ivanov in A. M. Gorky’s social and literary projects aimed at the creation of the future of Soviet Russia, his image, presented in the story “A strange case in the Warm Lane”, keeps those semantic constants, which we called. However, in the text of the 1930s they are presented not scary, but ridiculous. The ongoing struggle to free the “prisoners of El Gotha” does not look ominous, it is mainly manifested in the “powerful shouting” and “waving of arms”. The great scientific discoveries of the future, the achievements of scientists and the possibility of their collaboration with writers, to which attracted so much attention in the current periodicals of the era, are given by V. Ivanov in a parody key: the relationship of autobiographical hero and young physicists, the realities of the future Moscow (for example, the House of Eccentrics), from which only an ordinary mouse gets into the present, and others. The outstanding scientific discovery of a professor from the future of the USSR aimed at cost-beneficial reduction of growth of a person while preserving his mental abilities, parodying the attitudes of the era 1930s to create a “race of giants”. At the same time in the dreams of V. Ivanov’s characters (in the novel “U”, for example) the image of the future preserves peculiar to the time light, sublime features. The article is held the parallel between the images of the future in the works of V. Ivanov and L. M. Leonov (in the novel “The Road to the Ocean”) of the 1930s. Almost simultaneously Writers question the technical progress, “the construction Christian Paradise” (L. Leonov) by the forces of living people with inevitable limited by life itself and human nature opportunities.

Keywords: dreams about the future, dreams, semantic constants, dystopia, parody, installation of the era, literary parallels

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