In this Book
- Prodigal Son: Vasilii Shuksin in Soviet Russian Culture
- Book
- 2000
- Published by: Northwestern University Press
- Series: Studies in Russian Literature and Theory
A wildly prolific director, actor, and writer, Vasilii Shukshin (1929-74) reached more Soviets in more media than perhaps any other artist in the post-Stalinist USSR. This first English-language study of Shukshin and his work is thus a portrait of the culture of Soviet Russia after Stalin. John Givens begins with Shukshin's position between cultural realms and social strata: his abandoned peasant heritage in Siberia as the son of a purged kulak on the one hand and his life as a successful artist in Moscow on the other. Givens shows how this clash of cultures and identities was both a burden and the driving force of Shukshin's art-and how it represents a central dichotomy between rural and urban culture in Soviet Russia.This work provides new terms for rereading the culture of Shukshin's time- terms that take up notions of demographic displacement, class difference, and blurred boundaries among genres, audiences, and arts.
Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- pp. xv-xvii
- A Note on Sources
- p. xix
- Introduction
- pp. 1-10
- Chapter One: The Shukshin Legend
- pp. 11-28
- Chapter Five: Grotesque Characters
- pp. 87-111
- Chapter Six: The Author and His Critics
- pp. 112-135
- Chapter Seven: Return of the Prodigal Son
- pp. 136-152
- Chapter Eight: Telling His Own Story
- pp. 153-170
- Chapter Nine: The Search for Freedom:
- pp. 171-190
- Conclusion: The Shukshin Legend Revisited
- pp. 191-199
- Select Bibliography
- pp. 251-260
- Filmography
- pp. 261-262