Article

Name: To the History of Russian Myth of the Great Sinner: Breakers of the Fifth Commandment in the Soviet Novel of the 1970s (F. Abramov, V. Tendryakov, I. Grekova)

Authors: Margarita N. Klimova

Tomsk State University, Research Library, Tomsk, Russian Federation

In the section Literary Life of the Plot

Abstract: A meta-story of “repentance and salvation of a great sinner” became world-famous as part of the Christian ethical doctrine, and was enshrined in the sacrament of confession. For a number of reasons it lost its relevance in the West by the beginning of the New Age, but gained a second life in Russia as one of the myths of national consciousness. The Russian adaptations of the great sinner myth are characterized by a “sobornyi” approach to a problem of personal guilt and redemption, as well as fixation on open endings. The myth’s motifs and variations are widely represented in Russian classical literature works, as well as Soviet writers’ works. The article is devoted to one of the variants of existence of the myth in the Soviet period – a history of a breaker of the fifth commandment (on filial piety) on the example of three novels of the 1970s. “A Trip to the Past” by F. Abramov (1974), which was published in the years of perestroika, is one of the first attempts at a truthful depiction of collectivization. The main character of this little novella, plunging into the memories, overestimates the people and events of his youth, but betrayal of his father, who was declared as “the enemy of the people”, he could redeem only at the cost of his own life. V. Tendryakov’s suspenseful novel “Payback” (1979) is devoted to investigation of a serious crime – patricide committed by a teenager, but a traditional form of detective narration is used in it to raise topical ethical issues of modern life. The study of the causes and background of the private tragedy of the Karyakins family reveals the weak points of interaction between the individual and society, the family and the state, as well as the definition of permissible limits for active resistance to evil. I. Grekova’s “The Widow’s Steamer” (1979) is a vivid example of “female prose”. It tells about the life of the inhabitants of a Moscow communal apartment during several decades. One of the main plotlines of the story is dramatic relationship between mother and son in the Gromov’s family. Cruel youthful maximalism and egocentrism on the one hand, and “bondage of maternal love” on the other, erect a wall of estrangement between once close people, which cannot overcome even belated repentance of the son. Diverse in a creative manner stories bring together interest of their authors to the recent pages of Soviet history, an active use of mythologems of Russian and world culture, as well as the tragical rendition of the immortal parable of the prodigal son.

Keywords: Christianity and literature, national myths, Russian literature, Soviet literature, Christian ethics, family relations

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