Article

Name: “Russian” and “Soviet” Plot in the Literary Works of Yoko Tavada

Authors: T. S. Simyan

Yerevan State University, Yerevan, Armenia

Abstract:

In the article the concepts-signified as “Russian” and “Soviet” expressed in the works of the German-Japanese writer Yoko Tavada (born 1960) are touched upon. The concepts signified as “Soviet” and “Russian” do encompass everything that is connected with Russian culture, literature and the Soviet Union. The empirical material for the given depiction were the essay and novel by Tavada “Suspicious passengers of your night trains” (2002, 2009). Based on the example of this novel the attitude of the younger generation of the socialist countries of late 1980s to the Russian language is revealed. The transition of the socialist bloc (Yugoslavia) is described on the example of clothes (jeans, aluminum fork, and pizza), the younger generation (good manners vs. bad manners), and language skills (English vs. Russian). The heroine’s journey along the Trans-Siberian Railway (Moscow – Irkutsk – Khabarovsk) enabled the author to reveal the micro-historical realities of the last decade of the Soviet era.

The plot of the novel showed that in the last decades of the Soviet era there was already a “nostalgia” for household goods, the style of clothing and music, and Western pop culture (Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley). During the contact with the main character, the Russian soul (benevolence, openness, hospitality) and low standards of eco-awareness and disrespect for non-smokers in public transport (train) are revealed. The Soviet era is also confessed at the level of smell and food (garlic, cheap cigarettes, onions, black bread, porridge, soup butter drips, vodka, etc.). In the course of the narrative and communication with the surrounding people the Siberian “real” world is indicated, i.e. the poverty of the interior of the Siberian villages of the Soviet era. In the course of describing the Siberian expanse its natural and climatic constants such as cold, snow, bathhouse and birch, the latter as a symbol of all of Russia with its mythological stratum, were presented. The attributive cycle of the Siberian natural-climatic and “material” world is completed by the theme of androgyny opened up in the Siberian bathhouse, which is a space for identifying all types of physical things, that is, of female and male in woman and man.

Keywords: Soviet era, Soviet, Russian, Russian hospitality, microhistory

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