The first edition of “The Malachite Box” by P. Bazhov in the assessment of metropolitan and regional critics

UDC 821.161.1.09

DOI  10.20339/PhS.1-24.080

Surovova Lyudmila Yu.,

Candidate of Philology, Senior Scientific Researcher

Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences

e-mail: l.sur@mail.ru

The article, dedicated to the first edition of the book “The Malachite Box”, for the first time collects and analyses all identified reviews on it. They help to understand and trace how the public consciousness gradually formed and established the attitude towards the writer P.P. Bazhov as a collector of folklore. Particular attention is given to a review by the writer Andrei Platonov, who approached Bazhov’s tales from an unexpected angle, departing from the traditions of Soviet criticism. Reactions to “The Malachite Box” in the metropolitan magazines and newspapers differed from those appearing in the regional press. The central and regional press bodies had their own goals and objectives, and their views on Bazhov did not coincide. In addition, the general political situation in the Soviet Union had an impact, when national roots were remembered as necessary for the patriotic education of young people, and the country began to cultivate folk art, support storytellers, collect and publish songs, legends, fairy tales. The article briefly reveals this temporal context. It also shows the significance of Bazhov’s tales for his contemporaries in comparison with the tales of S. Pisakhov, published just before “The Malachite Box” and discussed along with it.

Keywords: P. Bazhov, A. Platonov, S. Pisakhov, Soviet literature, criticism of the second half of the 1930s, folklore, epic, tale, cultural policy of the USSR.

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