Aleksandr Grin's Primate Visions: The Short Story 'Obez´iana' ('The Ape')
Journal: The Slavonic and East European Review
Year: 2025

Abstract: The article offers the first close reading of Aleksandr Grin's short story 'Obez´iana' ('The Ape', originally published in 1924 as 'Obez´iana sapun'). The analysis connects Grin's story with Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' (1841) and examines some of the key aspects of the narrative through the lens of Darwin-inspired debates on the theatre as a site of transgressions on the human/animal boundary. The story is interpreted as an ironic critique of an ontology of the hu