Article

Name: The Path “from Tavern to the Temple” and “from the Regional Executive Committee to the Tavern” in the Story of V. M. Shukshin “The Master”

Authors: Vladimir K. Vasiliev

Siberian Federal University, Krasnoyarsk, Russian Federation

Abstract:

During Shukshin’s lifetime, the story “The Master” was published in three different versions. Their main differences, the oxymoronic (built on contradictions) poetics of the story, as well as other methods of the author’s “ciphering” of criminal, anti-Soviet meanings are considered. It turns out that the semantics of one text fragment contradicts the semantics of another, the plot solution as a whole sharply diverges with some significant statements of the hero. Analytics convinces that the main task set by Shukshin was to point out the real destroyers of national shrines, Orthodox Temples. Insolvency of the concept of “sincere acceptance” of Soviet power that has been established in Shukshin’s contect is shown. The hero of the story, the “drunken” Semka Rys, fails to walk the “road to the temple” and restore the Talitsky church, it is Soviet government members who turn him back onto the road leading to the taver-na/vodka stall. Beyond the logic of the structure of the story is the interpretation of the image of Semka Rys, existing in Shukshin’s studies, as a possible destroyer of the temple, a double of the agricultural foreman Nikolai Shurygin. In the “Master” Shuk-shin goes beyond the village theme (it is represented by a description of the actions of the heroes who destroyed the church in the novel “Lubavins”, in the stories “Glow Rain” and “Strong Man”) and names new addresses indicating the authorities waging war against their people – these are regional executive committees and Moscow.

Keywords: author’s code, problems of Shukshin’s studies, anti-Soviet text by Vasily Shukshin

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