The image of a rebel writer (based on the novels "The Revolt of Denis Bushuev" by S. S. Maksimov and "The Revolt of the Sunflower" by L.D. Rzhevsky)

Konovalov Andrei ORCID: 0000-0001-9311-3239 PhD in Philology Associate Professor, Russian Literature Department, Moscow State Pedagogical University 119435, Russia, Moscow, Moscow, Malaya Pirogovskaya str., 1, room 303 aa.konovalov@mpgu.su

Petrova Anastasiia ORCID: 0009-0002-4139-9196 Postgraduate student, Department of Russian Literature of the XX-XXI centuries, Moscow Pedagogical State University 121108, Russia, Moscow, Moscow, Kastanaevskaya str., 45 k.1, sq. 65 nroslavceva@gmail.com

 The literary legacy left by the second wave of Russian emigration is only beginning to be actively studied today, although the prospects of this area of literary criticism were repeatedly noted at the end of the last century ^[1]. Unlike the previous first wave of emigration, the second did not become a single self-explanatory process, representing a real "scattering", weakly or even completely unrelated. Nevertheless, researchers have repeatedly noted the general trends characteristic of representatives of this trend, who did not even engage in creative dialogue with each other. Thus, there are several leading thematic areas ^{[2, 14]} that develop in the prose and poetry of the authors of the second wave: social changes in Russia in the 1930s, World War II, life in the camps of the D.P. and life in exile. The anti-Bolshevik orientation is also noted as the leading trend in foreign Russian-language literature ^{[3, 21]}. And although the artistic features of the most prominent writers have been considered in several dissertation studies and few articles^[1], there are still very few generalizing works on the poetics of second-wave prose, as well as monographic works devoted to its most significant representatives.

Currently, one of the most well-studied authors of the second wave of emigration is Leonid Denisovich Rzhevsky (real name Surazhevsky, 1905-1986). One of the brightest and most significant Russian emigrant writers received his philological education in his homeland (graduated from the 2nd Moscow State University, now MPSU), but he began his creative career already in exile (Germany, Switzerland and the USA). The main characters of L.D. Rzhevsky are autobiographical: in the works devoted to various historical events, we can see plots reflecting important life milestones of the writer himself: work and study in Moscow ("Between Two Stars"), war and captivity ("The Girl from the Bunker"), life in exile ("Sunflower Riot"). The writer's work allows us to recreate, as A.A. Konovalov notes ^[4], the historical and literary context of the entire second wave of emigration.

The work of Sergei Sergeevich Maksimov (real name Pashin (Paskhin), 1916-1967) is just beginning to be studied at home. We know about the author mainly from the information provided by V.V. Agenosov and M.E. Babicheva: S. S. Maksimov ("Information about the real surname varies: in the USA his brother lived under the surname Pashin, local historian and literary critic A. Lyubimov claims that it is correct to say Paskhin; N. Pashin's widow called me the surname Parshin" ^[5]) was born in Kostroma province, the writer's ancestors served as pilots or captains on the Volga, so he devotes a significant part of his works to depicting the Volga expanses. From the age of 15 he was published in Murzilka, entered the Literary Institute, but then he was arrested and in 1936 he was sent to Pechorlag. The author's work describes the social changes in the country at the beginning of the 20th century, as well as the harsh realities of concentration camps ("Taiga", "Blue Silence").

It can be noted that the basis of L. D.'s creativity is Rzhevsky and S. S. Maksimov are based on real facts from the history of the country and personal life, which was typical for most second-wave prose writers. The emigrants of the 1940s, the "second", were cut off from their Homeland in a much more categorical and uncompromising form than the representatives of the first wave (there is practically no re–emigration among them, and unlike the emigrants of the 1910s - 1920s. until the turn of the 1980s-1990s, they did not have the opportunity to visit their Homeland for a short time as part of tourist groups, no correspondence with relatives). Nevertheless, the "second" were actively interested in what was happening in the USSR, and again and again returned in their works to the events that influenced their creative destiny. Thus, one of the important themes peculiar to the prose of the second wave of emigration is the problem of the relationship between the artist and the government, relevant to all Russian literature, but especially aggravated in the XX century and took a central place in the work of emigrants of the 1940s and 1960s.

The fate of a writer who is forced to interact with the authorities in different ways – to try to establish a dialogue, adapt, emigrate, hide, enter into open confrontation – often becomes the central problem of many works of Russian literature, and this tradition continues in the work of emigrant writers. Gradually changing its artistic appearance and being modified taking into account the realities of the era, the image of the hero-creator at the beginning of the last century, along with philosophical tasks, begins to fulfill social ones. So, in the 1920s and 1930s, the artist in the broadest sense of the word became part of the state ideological machine. In this situation, directly (as a rule, "on the table" in relation to Soviet reality) or indirectly (using allegory and mythological generalizations), the authors of works of art are increasingly asking themselves about the role of creativity and the creator (in particular, the writer) both within the framework of their work and in public discussions. In the pre-war period, a significant number of works dedicated to the image of such a hero appeared: for example, "The Master and Margarita" by M. Bulgakov, "The Gift" by V. Nabokov, "The Artist is Unknown" by V. Kaverin, "The Thief" by L. Leonov, etc.

It can be noted that one of the significant literary traditions of the beginning of the last century is the image of an artist who tends not only to depict the reality surrounding him, but also to create it. When creating such a character, the writer relies primarily on his own values and ideals. M. M. Bakhtin defines an author as a hierarchically organized phenomenon, a triad: a biographical author (exists exclusively outside the work) — a primary author (not created, but creating) — a secondary author (created and creating) ^[6]. Such a triad most accurately reveals the relationship between the author-creator and the author-hero in the structure of the work of art and will be used in the analysis of the novels "The Revolt of Denis Bushuev" and "The Revolt of the Sunflower".

In the 1920s, V. Vinogradov developed a theory of functional styles, in which the image of the author was understood as the main stylistic characteristic that determines the aesthetic attitude of the author to the content of his own work ^{[7, 1976]}. One of the main features of the image of the creator in the works of the beginning of the last century is autobiographical, which can be explained by the desire of the "primary" author to convey all the difficulties of the creative process, including ideological pressure. This technique gives the author the opportunity to both distance himself and talk about creativity and talent outside of time, as well as comment on what is happening here and now.

In turn, G. Ya. Solganik calls the manifestation of attitude to reality one of the main components of the image of the second one ^{[8, 2014]}. That is, the image of the creator in a work of art can express the social and philosophical ideas of the author, and the autobiographical nature of this image only strengthens the connection of the author's views on the world around him and his own place in it with the ideological and value positions broadcast in the work of art. It can be concluded that the image of the artist in literature not only depicts the creative process and helps to explore the role of the creator, but also serves as a platform for expressing and discussing socio-cultural issues, which indicates a deep relationship between the artist and society, in which creativity becomes the mouthpiece of public opinion.

This is exactly what the society of the post-revolutionary period is becoming, since now it is characterized by intense cultural and social changes caused by revolutionary events and the desire to build a new society. In turn, literature plays a key role in this process, becoming not only an exponent and critic of social processes, but also one of the main landmarks in the formation of a renewed cultural identity. Literary centrality in general is a fundamental feature of the national worldview in Russian culture, and therefore the depiction of the writer's life allows you to put together a complete picture of the social life of the whole period.

The emigration processes in Russia in the 1917-1980s, including the "second wave", were based on a conflict with the authorities. The fate of an emigrant writer is consistently reflected in his work, when the facts of biography are taken as the basis of the plot or the hero is endowed with autobiographical features. Bringing the hero-creator to the fore, the author pushes the reader to find this parallel, while at the same time comprehending his own experience on the pages of works of art. The characters of L. Rzhevsky and S. Maksimov also have autobiographical features, which has been repeatedly noted by researchers of their work ^{[5; 9; 4; 10]}. Thus, turning to the study of the images of creative heroes depicted by the authors of the second wave of Russian emigration, it is possible not only to consider the problem of the relationship between the artist and the authorities from a new perspective, but also to expand the idea of the socio-cultural context of the middle of the last century.

The novel "Sunflower Riot" was published in 1981 in New York. This is an independent work, embedded, however, in the author's text system and is the last major text by L.D. Rzhevsky, completing his creative path. The novel covers a wide range of issues and includes many intertextual elements, and also has a complex narrative structure: it includes two novellas, the authors of which are the main characters. The central characters of the novel are representatives of the creative intelligentsia of the Russian emigration: the narrator S.S., a grumpy elderly emigrant of the second wave, who went through the war and is experiencing a severe internal conflict consisting of homesickness and simultaneous resentment against her; and Dima "Sunflower", an emigrant of the third wave, who fled to the United States for freedom of speech. The main conflict is developing around the collision of two waves of Russian emigration in the United States.

In the person of Dima, we see a generalized image of a writer from the third wave of emigration. He emigrated to America in search of a better life and freedom of expression, but found himself hostage to his own expectations. He does not feel such selfless and devoted love for his Homeland as S.S., however, over time he realizes that, having left Russia, he left his reader there, and therefore now feels a crisis, which he calls "creative infertility".

The title of the novel "Sunflower Riot" plays off the title of the poem by the Ukrainian poet I. Drach "Balada pro sonyashnik" ("The Ballad of the Sunflower"), which is repeatedly quoted by the main character. Dima made a talented translation of the poem into Russian and read it with great enthusiasm at creative evenings and home gatherings, feeling a special kinship with the lyrical hero of the work: he freezes in admiration of the sun-poetry, which has become a passion of his whole life; poetry is called the sun, and everyone who discovered it for himself is a sunflower. Dima's special love for this text suggests that in this sunflower he saw himself – a man ready to risk everything and follow his sun.

S. S., outraged by Dimina, and with him the generational narcissism (characteristic of the third wave of emigration, as representatives of the first and second waves believed), calls him a literary narcissist. Later we observe a language game based on allegory – narcissus as a hero of mythology turns into a flower, and through a reference to the "Ballad of the Sunflower" Dracha Dima acquires his nickname: "This one of his Fights composed a significant piece, a picturesque ricochet from the Greek. The Greeks have Narcissus, we have Sunflower!" ^{[11, 54]}.

However, later, reflecting on the inspired and emotional young talent, Sergei Sergeevich explains more gently that Dima's nickname actually deeply reveals his essence and the internal conflict developing inside the young poet: "I called Dima a Sunflower for narcissism, but, in fact, all of us intellectuals are sunflowers, because for all their hobbies, whether it was the people or the revolution, they loved themselves first of all, their ability to think, their obsession. <...> And we loved to rebel, but we hardly knew how, our rebellion ended in nothing – in despair, in repentance, in moral hara-kiri" ^{[11, 199]}.

If L. Rzhevsky writes rather a multi-layered novel, difficult to define from the point of view of genre affiliation, then S. Maksimov's work is quite accurately defined: "The Rebellion of Denis Bushuev", following the first part, it is attributed to the genre of a domestic novel with a pronounced love line lying almost in the center of the narrative, behind which the deep ideological problematic of the work and The next task is to depict how the new reality of the beginning of the century affects the fate of the characters. The novel was published in 1956 in New York and is a continuation of the sensational and repeatedly noted by contemporaries novel "Denis Bushuev" (according to V.V. Agenosov, I. Bunin, B. Zaitsev and M. Aldanov spoke positively about "Denis Bushuev". ^[5]). If the first novel tells about the youth of the main character and the formation of a young writer, then the sequel, although it is an independent work, tells about the life of the poet Bushuyev, known throughout the Union, who was awarded the Order of Lenin for the play "Sailor Khomyakov" and gained all-Union fame. Despite the fact that the second novel was rather coldly received by contemporaries, it raises important social problems, and the characters described in the first part are revealed from a new perspective. At the heart of "Denis Bushuev's Rebellion" lies the internal conflict of the title character, which is gradually destroying him: a talented writer who has gained recognition and popular love is hard pressed by the burden of popularity. Denis is going through a hard time with the social gap with the society from which he grew up, he hates to praise the government, which should fight for equality and universal well-being, but in fact only exacerbates class inequality.

N. Y. Bukareva notes: "S. Maksimov shows the inner division of the writer, who is forced to praise what he really does not agree with. This "bifurcation", essentially forced, leads a person to hypocrisy as an internally accepted ethical norm" ^{[10, 67]}. Indeed, Denis's inner division is already evident on the first pages of the novel: "During the short years of climbing the ladder of fame, Denis Bushuyev changed little in appearance and looked little like a famous writer – as before, in his whole appearance, the main thing, the Volga, which was his essence, was visible. And this main, roughly Russian, was not destroyed by elegant clothes, new traits in character, or confidence in movements and speech" ^{[12, 43]}.

The All–Union recognition, and at the same time wealth and access to the benefits of high society did not change Denis's nature - a strong man of Burlak blood who grew up on the Volga not only feels annoyance and awkwardness when he finds himself in the center of attention, but feels very well the gap with the people he comes from. He often comes to his small homeland and bitterly notes how much his new life differs from his fellow villagers, at the same time he wants a better life for his family and is ashamed that he begins to have little in common with the real people, for whose benefit he must work. Over the course of the novel, Denis is increasingly seized by thoughts of destiny, he is ashamed of his beautiful house towering over the huts of his native village of Brave, he is bitter at the need to sing the villains, he feels the difference between himself-a pilot and himself- a winner of the Stalin Prize more and more significantly.

It is obvious that the main characters of both novels are writers who are forced to live through a serious internal drama, which consists of ideological differences with the authorities. Denis tries to find a compromise between the desire to realistically depict both the world around him and historical reality and the need to "glorify" Soviet ideology; and Dima, the hero of L.D. Rzhevsky, chooses the path of emigration, thinking that the "land of freedoms" – the United States will allow his talent to reveal itself to the fullest, freed from the censorship shackles of Soviet power.

Denis Bushuev's rebellion is led by a whole series of events and accidents: Olga's influence and love for her; acquaintance with her brother, who escaped from the camp and was hiding from arrest; the behavior of his father, who turned into a philistine; the exhortations of his Grandfather, whose wisdom is beyond doubt; as well as chance meetings, literary evenings and the actions of colleagues – all these events significantly affect Denis, who is sensitive to human nature and keenly perceives what is happening around him. For the first time, he "took a wrong turn when he got the load to lead a literary circle at the Belinsky library and noticed that the poems that young people write "for the table" and for publication differ significantly, and sincere ones, and therefore the best ones are on eternal topics where there are "neither factories, nor collective farms, nor Stalin." "Even children understand what is meant for print and what is for the soul," Bushuyev thought bitterly" ^{[12, 26]}.

In the words of the hero, one of the central problems of the novel is expressed – the artist rebelling against power is actually rebelling against the insincerity and duplicity surrounding him. "How is it possible, despising the common man so much, to write novels and stories from the lives of workers and collective farmers?", "And what if there were true talents who glorified and justified the deeds of scoundrels?" ^{[12, 329]}, – the main character increasingly asks rhetorical questions in the course of the novel, the answers to which he does not voice but he feels, and therefore he is growing colder and colder towards creativity and is filled with anger towards the authorities, who gave him benefits for his work and at the same time took away his talent. Denis's own work becomes a heavy burden – a poem about Ivan the Terrible, which became interested in I.V. Stalin himself, who read the manuscript sent to the editor and invited Bushuev to his personal conversation to discuss the ideological component of the work: according to the leader, Grozny should be depicted as the greatest man who brought benefit to Russia, and the final scene where Grozny denounced as a violent criminal, it must be thrown out. This meeting changes a lot in the hero. Sometimes the thoughts that slipped through about the true purpose of the artist turn into a very serious internal dialogue: is it really necessary to give up the truth? Thus, the work on the work, which is based on historical events of the XVI century and a complex realistic image, confronts the writer with a sense of the duplicity of the present time and its "heroes".

Why do the authors choose this particular path of resistance for their characters? Rebellion as a result of not systematic resistance, but spontaneous uprising is one of the native Russian forms of protecting their identity, following prolonged humility and submission. The riots of both heroes express fiery speeches against socialist realism, however, with one significant difference: Denis rebelled against the entire Soviet government, boldly speaking with a poem about Ivan the Terrible at a literary evening broadcast on the radio; Dima's riots are monologues uttered in very private meetings, and directed to an older emigrant comrade S.S. Despite despite different circumstances, they have a lot in common: the Soviet writer, the winner of the Stalin Prize and the well-known in narrow circles emigrant of the third wave, who fled from the regime, cannot accept the principles of insincerity, the impossibility of full creative self-realization within the narrow framework of the course dictated by the state on socialism, which must be implemented on the pages of their opuses.

The culmination of S. Maksimov's novel is the scene of Denis's speech at a literary evening in the Hall of Columns of the House of Unions. Instead of reading an excerpt from one of his novels, Denis unexpectedly decides to read the final scene from the poem about Ivan the Terrible, which he asked to be deleted. Stalin. S. Maximov shows a vivid scene through the eyes of Olga, Denis's wife, the first to understand what kind of passage the writer was reading and what consequences it would lead to: "Denis Bushuev kept on and on throwing creepy, naked words into the hall. His naked voice thundered, shaking the crystal chandeliers, then turned almost into a whisper, passionate and strong, grabbing the audience by the hearts and causing a chill in their backs. Denis's eyes, which had been cold and cloudy before, lit up with a feverish, sick gleam. The fingers of the large hands trembled slightly, and the tight, slightly pale lips trembled in the pauses" ^{[12, 383]}

While working on the image of Ivan the Terrible, Bushuyev, who carefully studied various historical sources, suffered from the realization of historical injustice: the extreme cruelty with which the tsar carried out his reforms could not be justified by their greatness in the eyes of the writer. And he exposes this inhumanity in the finale of the poem, which the leader of the Soviets did not like so much. Despite the fact that the audience did not have time to realize the scale of what had happened and even burst into applause for the author, the consequences of the rebellion against the hypocrisy and unjustified cruelty of the rulers overtook Denis and his family too quickly. Already in the next scene we see the writer in Lubyanka's "doghouse", and the conclusion of the novel shows a real tragedy: the former all-Union favorite is deprived of all material benefits, his books are destroyed, his name is erased from history, and he himself dies escaping from the echelon of prisoners. Thus, we see that his rebellion is collapsing, fully revealing one of the main ideas of the novel: freedom of thought and speech, even for a talented author who sincerely burns with the idea of making the life of his family and compatriots better, is impossible where the truth is faced with the ideological tasks of a totalitarian state.

However, L. Rzhevsky goes further. His hero, who escaped from a totalitarian state in search of freedom of speech, also does not gain this freedom. Sunflower is staging two riots. For the first time, when he rebelled against the lack of freedom of speech in the USSR, Dima's speech is full of pathos about the lack of freedom of Russian literature created within the framework of socialist realism, he denounces a typical Soviet hero, reproaching him with the fact that he is not capable of a fair protest and that such a hero is a slander against an intelligent and great people. Dima is sincerely outraged that the state's policy destroys creativity, but he does not feel a break with his homeland and gloats at the writers who remained there.

But the second revolt against the inconsistency of Western life with the expectations placed on it forces us to look at Dima and the tragedy of the third emigration in a completely different way. The emigrants of the third wave were doomed to disappointment. And the reason for this was the reader, or rather his absence. Russian Russian writer Dima bitterly notes that Bunin did not create emigrant literature, he wrote what he "did not finish at home", that Hugo did not know the iron curtains, that great Russian literature needs, first of all, not freedom, but a great Russian reader, and the absence of this terrifies Dima: "What is written here will come to life only if it reaches the reader in his native land. But it will not reach, and that means there is no air!" ^{[11, 213]}.

Following Pasternak, whose words Dima cites as an example, he says that the main thing in creativity is dedication, but it is impossible to radiate into the void. Infertility becomes a special shimmering symbol in the novel: in fact, literary emigration is doomed to it. Dima compares emigrants with tourists, noting that it is impossible to create as a tourist. None of the arguments of relatives about the future reader has any effect on Dima, at the end of the episode he declares poetry, comparing the last line of the poet with the last day:

"Flight is impossible with one wing.

I am looking for a reader, as God's mercy,

To pour out to someone.

There is no one!"

^{[11, 215]}

In the finale of L. Rzhevsky's novel, Dima, who is rebelling against socialist realism, bitterly realizes that, unlike him, the writers who remained in Russia have a reader, which means that he is not really free at all.  Real creativity is impossible without the addressee of this creativity, which throughout the narrative L.D. Rzhevsky proves to us not only with the words of the characters, but also with a constant dialogue with the reader. However, even the conflict of the hero does not find its solution: despite the busy life path, Dima will remain forever a rebellious "sunflower", his rebellion will not stop until the end of his days, he will leave the world in disagreement with him. Such a rebellion of the soul, the formation of self–awareness and the search for oneself is what Rzhevsky appreciated in his characters, believing that this is the only way the hero can come to the truth.

It is highly likely that L.D. Rzhevsky, who closely followed the literary process in Foreign countries and Soviet Russia, could not miss the sensational novel by S. Maksimov, besides noted by his mentor I.A. Bunin, however, it was not possible to find facts confirming this assumption. We are of the opinion that on the pages of the works under study we can observe a creative dialogue within the framework of one literary process – the second wave of Russian emigration. It can be noted that the rebellious characters of L. Rzhevsky and S. Maksimov, despite existing in different social contexts (Russia of the 1930s and the USA of the 1970s), have many similar features, originating in the autobiographical features of characters created by emigrant authors of the same wave. Dima-Sunflower and Denis Bushuev both rebel against the Soviet government, each of them is unable to come to terms with the rules dictated by the totalitarian state. However, both heroes, refusing to cooperate with the authorities in favor of freedom of expression, are doomed to a tragic end, since they cannot exist without creating, and the airless, that is, devoid of an attentive and responsive reader, the space of the West turns out to be no better than the Soviet camp.

Thus, having considered the image of the hero-creator in the work of S.S. It can be noted that the image of the literary hero in the works of the second wave of emigration continues the tradition of classical Russian literature in depicting the conflict between the artist and power, but interprets it in its own way. The artist fails in this struggle against the state, his fate develops tragically, no matter which path of resistance – emigration or open rebellion in the metropolis – the hero chooses. This reveals an important idea for the second wave of emigration about the struggle for their right to be heard at home and the impossibility of its implementation.