WORK IN THE SOVIET UNION. LITERARY REMINISCENCES

• Authors: Halewska M.
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The authoress uses literature in its capacity of testimony to the truth to show how people's work was distorted in the Soviet Union. She refers to works about labour-camp life including 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich' by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn or 'The Kolyma Tales' by Varlam Shalamov. The loss of work ethics was present also in other spheres of life: journalism ('Angels on the Head of a Pin' by Yuri Druzhnikov), medicine and especially psychiatry ('And the Wind Returns' by Vladimir Bukovski). The authoress refers also to collectivization, which to a considerable degree influenced the attitude of Soviet people towards work. An example is 'The Foundation Pit' by Andrei Platonov, and the effects of a reputedly successful collectivization show in the Involuntary 'Journey to Siberia' by Andrei Amalrik. Recapitulating her deliberations, the authoress states that work was never of great value to Soviet people but rather the way of exploitation towards indignity and degradation. Work in the Soviet Union lost its fundamental meaning, was neither a value in or of itself and became a repulsive and arduous enthrallment.

Keywords

EN

AMALRIK A.; BUKOVSKI V.; DAILY WORK DISTORTIONS IN USSR; DRUZHNIKOV Y.; PLATONOV A.; SHALAMOV V.; SOLZHENITSYN A.

Discipline

• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk
• Journal: Slavia Orientalis
• Year: 2007
• Volume: 56
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 213-228
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Halewska M.

• M. Halewska, Uniwersytet Jagiellonski, Instytut Rosji i Europy Wschodniej, al. A. Mickiewicza 3, 31-120 Kraków, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

07PLAAAA02815734