Village Prose (Soviet Russian)

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

David Gillespie (University of Bath)

Ed. by Neil Cornwell, University of Bristol
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 2.2.2.00: Post-1917 Writing and Culture in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, 1917-present.
Vol. editors: Neil Cornwell (University of Bristol), Roman Koropeckyj (University of California, Los Angeles), Andrei Rogatchevski (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway)

Dates

Date of occurrence 1953-1991

Places

Russia (Location)

Genres and Modes

Prose Fiction Narrative

Resources

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Of all the areas of literary enquiry published in the Soviet Union following the death of Stalin, “village prose” is the one that most fundamentally challenged the myths and ideology on which Soviet society was built. Village prose was structured around contrast and opposition: old and new, village and town, female and male value systems, tradition and progress, stability and disruption, nature and industry, spiritual values and material needs, history and ideology. In all cases the former categories are favoured by the village writers, protesting against (and often damning) the latter. The opposition, however, runs deeper, serving to subvert authoritarian discourse and replace it with the people’s truth, based as it was on enormous suffering and gross injustice. In short, village…

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2228 words

Citation: Gillespie, David. "Village Prose (Soviet Russian)". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 July 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1293, accessed 22 November 2024.]

Village Prose (Soviet Russian)

Dates

Places

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Resources

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