Sidorova, G. P. Communist Morality in the Texts of Everyday Life of a Soviet Detective Story at the 1960–1980th

Abstract: As a part of the Soviet mass culture and society, literature was aimed at forming values of communist morality including simplicity and modesty of personal and everyday life. Mass literature formed these values through positive and negative, direct and indirect assessments of heroes and their actions. In modern cultural studies the items of everyday life are included in a broad understanding of a text. Certain items of everyday life and heroes’ attitudes to these items display an indirect assessment of heroes. Special attention to details of everyday life which is typical for the most popular genre – detective story – as well as the tendency of mass literature towards ‘the truth of life’ in the middle of the 1950th makes this genre to be an interesting source of cultural studies. The goal of the article is to trace back how the Soviet detective story of the 1960-1980th used texts of everyday life (clothes, footwear, jewelry) for forming the communist morality.

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