Carnival Culture and the Soviet Modernist Novel [Paperback]

This book examines the work of five Soviet prose writers - Olesha, Platonov, Kharms, Bulgakov and Vaginov - in the light of the carnivalesque elements of Russian popular culture. It shows that while Bakhtin's account of carnival culture sheds considerable light on the work of these writers, they need to be considered with reference to both the concrete forms of Russian and Soviet popular culture and the changing institutional framework of Soviet society in the 1920s and 1930s.Preface - Introduction: Carnival and Cultural Politics - PART 1: CARNIVAL AND THE RUSSIAN LITERARY INTELLIGENTSIA - Literary Engagement with Urban Popular Culture: Blok's Barazahyuk and Bely's Ilemepoypz - Revolutionizing Social Life From a Base in Art: The Avant-Garde and Mass Culture 1917-1928 - Cultural Cleavage and the Soviet Modernist Novel - PART 2: CARNIVAL AND THE SOVIET MODERNIST NOVEL - The Festive Revolutions of Yurii Olesha - Carnivalization and Populism in the Central Work of Andrei Platonov - Daniil Kharms, the Menippea and the 'Medieval' Grotesque - Bulgakov's Master and Margarita and the Devil's Carnival - A Note on Vaginov: The Novel as Compensatory Realm - Conclusion - Notes - Bibliography - Index