Article

Name: Jokes, Satire and Humorous Short Stories about the Soviet Red Army: Comic Situations and Comic Narratives

Authors: Nikolaev D. D. (Moscow)

Institute of World Literature of Russian Academy of Science, Moscow, Russian Federation

In the section Literary Life of the Plot

Abstract: In this article literary and folk works collected in the book «Pjat v jablochko: 210 anekdotov, scenok, jumoresok, chastushek iz krasnoarmejskogo byta» («Five shots in the eye: 210 jokes, sketches, funny stories, chastushkas from Red Army everyday life» (1929)) are analyzed. A lot of satire and humorous texts in the book are based on the universal comic situations connected with the army by whole book context. Jokes and funny stories about the Red Army explore the violation of the norm, but at creation of a plot authors are compelled to look for additional sources of comic effect, because the strong norm dictated by army rules is not such in practice. Comic conflicts are used not only for ridicule those who don’t want to take in care Red Army’s rules, but also for accusation all old, pre-revolutionary, symbolized as “dark peasant” trying to resist new, soviet, as which carrier the Red Army acts.

Keywords: satire, humor, comic literature, joke, red army, soviet literature, russian literature of 1920th, sketch, soviet history.

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