Aksenov and Stalinism: Political, Moral, and Literary Power

Article published in the «The Slavic and East European Journal» — 1986 — Vol. 30 — No. 4 (Winter) — p. 509-525.Stalinism has necessarily been a central subject of serious Russian literature since the 1930s. The grotesque nature of Stalinist society has generated memoirs more fantastic than fiction and novels especially rooted in history. Survivors of the experience are unavoidably concerned with the moral problems of resisting and responding to evil, torn between a desire for revenge and the ideal of forgiveness. Aksenov's The Burn (Oog) must be read in the context of this history and the texts it produced. The burn of the title refers both to Stalinism and to the burn of creativity. By recapitu- lating his own biography, Aksenov writes a literary-historical confession that traces the effects of Stalinism on the author's generation from the 1940s to the mid-1970s. In attempting to reconcile his love of Russian cul- ture with his hatred of Russian barbarity, Aksenov sets the novel in dialogue with two authoritative texts: his mother's memoir of her years in Stalin's camps provides the focus of the moral dimension of The Burn, while Bul- gakov's Master and Margarita, probably the single greatest work of art produced in response to Stalinism, is The Burn's stylistic parent. An analysis of that dialogue is the focus of this paper.