An Attempt to Revive the Past. The Meta-novel "Town in Valley" by Alexei Makushinsky
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31261/RSL.2024.34.10Keywords:
Town in Valley, Alexei Makushinsky, meta-novel, memory and history, Post-Soviet Émigré LiteratureAbstract
This article explores the relationship between the past and the present in the metanovel City in the Valley, written by the Russian émigré author Alexei Makushinsky. The discussion focuses on the protagonist, who makes an unsuccessful attempt to write a novel about the Russian Civil War. The aim of the article is to uncover the reasons and key aspects of the creative failure depicted by Makushinsky, addressing oppositions such as past vs. present, personal vs. historical, and memory vs. imagination. It also delves into the interactions between author and text, and ultimately, fiction and history. The main conclusions are that City in the Valley demonstrates the futility of using literary texts as tools to resurrect the past and that fiction cannot replace memory or transform historical events into personal experiences. Artistic and historical elements can complement each other, but a complete synthesis is evidently impossible.
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