Scandal and Controversy in Russian literature - Episode 7: A very dark novel Artwork

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Senior lecturer Otto Boele examines eight notorious texts in Russian literature, paying particular attention to the commotion that they created.

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Scandal and Controversy in Russian literature - Episode 7: A very dark novel

May 15, 2024 • Leiden University Faculty of Humanities • Season 2 • Episode 7

The seventh episode of the podcast is about “The Sad Detective” by Viktor Astafiev (1924-2001), published in 1986.

Did the increased openness under Mikhail Gorbachev (in power from 1985 until 1991) also have a downside? Absolutely! Some writers seemed to relish the idea of depicting Soviet society as being completely ravaged by alcoholism and domestic violence without offering a shimmer of hope for the future. An important pioneer of this “black wave” of Soviet literature was Viktor Astafiev who had made a name for himself with thick, colourful novels set in Siberia, but now seemed to adopt a new approach in his fiercely realistic urban novel “The Sad Detective”. Soon the novel became the focal point of a lively debate that involved critics and readers, liberals and nationalists, and signalled the return of anti-Semitism and Russian nationalism as entirely legitimate positions.

Sources used in this episode of "Scandal and Controversy in Russian Literature":

- Clark, Katerina. 2000. The Soviet Novel. History as Ritual, 3d edition (Bloomington: Indiana University Press).

- Graham, Seth. 2000. “Chernukha and Russian Film,” Studies in Slavic Cultures, 1, pp. 9-27.

- Parthé, Kathleen. 2004. Russia’s Dangerous Texts. Politics Between the Lines (New Haven: Yale University Press).

- Parthé, Kathleen. 1992. Russian Village Prose. The Radiant Past (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).

All translations were done by Otto Boele.