Glushakov, P. (2018). Shukshin and others: Articles, materials, commentaries. St. Petersburg: Rostok. (In Russ.)

Abstract

Glushakov’s book joins in the polemic about the status of Vasily Shukshin in 20th-c. Russian literature. The reviewer argues that it was Shukshin’s prose that gave voice to the hitherto unknown and disturbingly unusual stratum of the Russian people. He further points out that the book draws hardly any parallels between Shukshin and his predecessor Gorky. It is also argued that the compiler of the tome chose to forego a detailed examination of Shukshin’s numerous ties with world literature. Therefore, P. Glushakov’s opus seems a product of a respite, defined by renewed interest in Shukshin’s works and enthusiastic search by the post-Soviet people for a source of the much coveted and needed spiritual revival. Glushakov’s position appears highly uncertain: he places Shukshin in a hermetic environment with only echoes of his relations with contemporaries and his own spectral image for company.