“This Is Not Art but the Most Real Life”: Ideology, Literature, and Self-creation in a Soviet Teenager’s Diary (1937–1941)
| dc.creator | Zadirko, Ekaterina | |
| dc.date | 2025-05-27T10:07:47Z | |
| dc.date | 2025 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-08-03T04:27:15Z | |
| dc.description | Abstract This article closely examines the diary of Ivan Khripunov (1923–1942?), a peasant teenager from the south of Russia. I argue that in his diary, Ivan did not narrate his self with the use of Soviet language but rather aspired to develop as a narrator, learning how to write according to Soviet guidelines to then pursue a writing career. I rely on Iurii Lotman’s theory of communication, which allows me to regard the diary simultaneously as a “message” (representation of the diarist’s experiences) and a “code” (the diarist’s self-instructions on how to make sense of those experiences). The article is divided into three parts: in the first section, I discuss Ivan’s claim that his diary was a chronicle and explore how Socialist realist categories shaped his writing. In the second section, I analyze his autobiography written as one long diary entry and modelled after Maksim Gorʹkii’s autobiographical novel My Childhood (1914). I show that Ivan intended to assemble his future writer’s reputation on Gorʹkii’s example. Lastly, I look into a fictional story The Death of Vasilii Rebrov , also incorporated into the diary to solidify the creation of Ivan’s narrator-self. | |
| dc.format | application/pdf | |
| dc.identifier | 0037-6779 | |
| dc.identifier | https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/384508 | |
| dc.identifier | https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.118482 | |
| dc.identifier | 2325-7784 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://repo.dare.co.zw/handle/123456789/189534 | |
| dc.language | eng | |
| dc.publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) | |
| dc.publisher | Department of Slavonic Studies Student | |
| dc.rights | Attribution 4.0 International | |
| dc.rights | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | |
| dc.subject | 4303 Historical Studies | |
| dc.subject | 43 History, Heritage and Archaeology | |
| dc.title | “This Is Not Art but the Most Real Life”: Ideology, Literature, and Self-creation in a Soviet Teenager’s Diary (1937–1941) | |
| dc.type | Article |