Korolev, S. A. Soviet and Anti-Soviet: Prototypes and Meanings

Abstract: The article is devoted to ideological and political connotations in I. Ilf’s and E. Petrov’s novels ‘The Twelve Chairs’ and ‘The Little Golden Calf’. The author of the article is being rather skeptical about ‘Anti-Soviet’ and ‘Anti-Trotsky’ implications of these novels (M. Odessky and D. Feldman). At the same time, the author studies prototypes of Ostap Bender, ‘Kisa’ Vorobyaninov and Vasisualy Lokhankin. The author shows that one of the persons which biography was used by the Soviet authors for creating Vorobyaninov’s image was a well-known monarchist, deputy of the II, III and IV State Duma V. Shulgin. This is why the novels can’t be considered ‘Anti-Soviet’. As for the image of Lokhanin, the author of the present article agrees with Nadezhda Mandelshtam and believes this image to be a parody of Russian intelligentsia, opposing to some respected experts such as S. Lurye and Yu. Scheglov who thought it to be an inadequate approach. At the end the author offers his own classification of prototypes of literary heroes. The author underlines that the relationship between a prototype and a hero is quite complicated and sometimes can be somehow ‘reversed’ –when an imaginary hero starts to influence the cultural perception of a real prototype.

Keywords: