Transformation of M. Zoshchenko's Plots in the Soviet Literature of the Thirties

M. Zoshchenko’s stories of the twenties gave rise to a great number of imitations in mass fiction. Semiofficial \nwriters of the 1930s also often appealed to Zoshchenko’s stories, trying to transform them so \nthat they match the ideological canons of the Stalin era. Thus, M. Kol’tsov includes a variation on the \ntheme of Zoshchenko’s “Podarok” (“Rasskaz o Podletse”) / “The Gift” (“The Story of the Scoundrel”) \nin his keynote speech on the problem of Soviet satire at the First Soviet Writers’ Congress (1934). At \nthat the conceptual point of Zoshchenko’s story is reduced, a complete story turns into a rough draft for \na newspaper feuilleton based on concrete material. Another example of the Soviet-style deconstruction \nof Zoshchenko’s plot can be found in Kol’tsov’s essay “Three days in a taxi” (1934). “Slight experience” \nin testing for the Soviet citizens’ honesty is inspired by Zoshchenko’s story “Na Zhivtsa” (“Chestnaia \ngrazhdanka”) / “With Whitebait” (“Honest Citizen”). Bait packages, Zoshchenko’s and Kol’tsov’s \ncharacters catch thieves with, look very similar but fundamentally differ in their concepts. This serves \nthe evidence of a significant difference in the writers’ views on human nature of the Soviet era

Political science · Transformation (genetics · Chemistry · Discourse Analysis and Cultural Communication