The revolution as seen by L. Leonov's literary characters.
Creators: name: Slowikowski, Irena.
Publisher: name: Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
Year: 1964
Subjects: subject: Literature, Slavic and East European.

description: The opinion of critics is controversial as far as Leonid Leonov is concerned. One of L. Leonov's novel, The Russian Forest, is now considered to have anti-Stalinist elements even by the Soviet critics. In connection with the new trend in Soviet literary criticism an attempt is being made to analyse Leonid Leonov's creativity independently from political and ideological factors. The purpose of this thesis is to appraise the revolution as seen by L. Leonov's heroes, to find out how it was received and understood by different strata of the Soviet population. To comprehend the literary characters, it was judged necessary to study the life and the literary opinions of their creator. In the first chapter the analysis of Leonid Leonov as a man and a writer showed some discrepancies in details of his life as well as in the critics' appraisal of his views. It was pointed out that the writer is constant and even stubborn as far as his literary beliefs are concerned. The four next chapters are concerned with Leonov's heroes divided according to their social status. Thus the second chapter deals with the peasants. The Russian peasant is passive. He believes in the philosophy of non-resistance, as the result of the long tears of the landowners' yoke. As he was not interested in the affairs of the city, he was not fully aware of the advent of the revolution which would affect his traditional way of life. (The Breakthrough of Petusixa, The White Nights). But after some hopes of betterment of his situation, he revolts against the injustice of the city, brought by the bolshevik newcomers to the village. When the peasants' revolt is crushed they accept the new master (The Badgers, Sot'). Only the period of the Industrialization creates the possibility of rapprochement of the peasants and the new rulers, by the hope of the economic improvement of their lives. However these peasants who join the proletarian ranks change their social status and the social structure of society accordingly. More than twenty years later, during the war, peasants are still not politically educated. They do not feel the previous hostility towards the new order and reveal their readiness to defend the country as such. However the are absorbed mostly in their own affairs (Ljonuska, The Russian Forest). In the third chapter the proletariat is studied. In Leonov's works the real, that is the urban proletariat has some misgivings concerning the methods of revolutionary changes (The Thief, Skutarevskil), but they believe in the revolution as such. Their inner conflicts are eventually resolved. As for the previously rural population, who joined the workers, they will be re-educated under the new conditions (Sot', Skutarevskij). In the fourth chapter the intelligentsia is studied in the examples of the eight heroes starting from Lixarev (Konec Melkovo Celoveka) ending with Vixrov from The Russian Forest. All the heroes are not opposed to the idea of revolution but the acceptance of the reality is made difficult by the suffering and degradation. In the fifth chapter the analysis of communists shows that among them existed two concepts of the role of the revolution in human life. Some of them had only the state's interest in mind while others connected the country's well-being with the satisfactory conditions of its people. The war brings some understanding of the human element as far as the relation with the population is concerned. But it is The Russian Forest, the first novel of the Thaw period, which demonstrates that in human relations coldness is harmful. Polja passes through the transformation from the prevailing conception of human perfection into the acceptance of forgotten simple laws of the human heart. With the new generation, which will take the ruling of the country into their hands, humanism will prevail. At least such is the hope of Polja's creator.