Issue 3 (92)
| THE RHETORIC AND POETICS OF SUPER-EFFORT IN THE LITERATURE OF THE URALS OF THE FORCED INDUSTRIALIZATION ERA | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year | 2026 | Number | 3 (92) |
| Pages | 111-121 | Type | scientific article |
| UDC | 82(470.5) | BBK | 83.3(235.55) |
| Authors | Podlubnova Julija S. |
Topic | AT THE TURNINIG POINT OF THE AGES. 20TH CENTURY RUSSIAN LITERATURE |
| Summary | This article explores one aspect of the literature created during the era of forced industrialization (which largely coincides with the timeframe of the First Five-Year Plan): the depiction of arduous labor effort as an essential element of the Soviet worldview, which was mythologized at its core, yet clearly oriented towards the pragmatic goals set by the government that launched the process of reconstruction and consolidation of the country’s productive capacities. Surveying the literary landscape in the Urals that took shape in the late 1920s and early 1930s we see how the leading role of literary criticism developed and how criticism articulated the link between literature and industry as well as the need for writers to take on the role of shock workers in the field of literature. Criticism offered writers the framework and rhetoric of industrialization, guiding them simultaneously towards depicting labor at the limits of human capabilities and towards similar equally challenging literary work. The focus of the article is on Ural essays, poetry and prose depicting specific industrial sites from Magnitogorsk to Berezniki and shock workers many of whom were not fictional but historical figures. In this literature labor was presented not as a grueling routine (as it actually was) but as a personal or collective feat, a sublime and uplifting undertaking, a super-effort that saved production (and therefore the construction of socialism) from “breakthroughs” rush jobs, the vicissitudes of nature and so on. Such extraordinary effort was in keeping with the notions of a “heroic era” and the accelerated pace of industrialization. And it was precisely this super-effort that led the character who embarked on the path of shock work to transformation to becoming a true hero. | ||
| Keywords | rhetoric of industrialization, literature of the Urals, labor and super-effort in literature, literary criticism, shock workers | ||
| References |
Berdyaev N. A. Istoki i smysl russkogo kommunizma [The Origin of Russian Communism]. Paris: YMCA PRESS Publ., 1955. (in Russ.). Borisova O. S., Buynyakova I. S. [To the Apocalypse and Back. Time in the Project of the “New Man” of the 1920s]. Nauchnyy rezul’tat. Sotsial’nye i gumanitarnye issledovaniya [Research Result. Social Studies and Humanities], 2021, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 33–40. (in Russ.). Bugrov K. D. [The Development of Culture and Science in the Ural Oblast]. Ural’skaya oblast’ v 1923–1934 gg.: vzglyad cherez 100 let [The Ural Oblast in 1923–1934: A View through 100 Years]. Ekaterinburg: IIiA UrO RAN; Ural’skiy institut upravleniya — filial RANKhiGS Publ., 2025, pp. 104–125. (in Russ.). Bugrov K. D., Kiselev M. A., Mashtakova L. V. Stanovlenie opornogo kraya. Industrial’nyy Ural v mobilizatsionnoy kul’ture 1930–1940-kh gg. [The Formation of a Stronghold Region. The Industrial Urals in the Mobilization Culture of the 1930s–1940s]. Ekaterinburg: Izdatel’stvo Ural’skogo universiteta Publ., 2022. (in Russ.). Bulgakov S. Filosofiya khozyaystva [The Philosophy of Economy]. Moscow: Institut russkoy tsivilizatsii Publ., 2009. (in Russ.). Dobrenko E. [The Formation of the Institution of Soviet Literary Criticism in the Era of Cultural Revolution: 1928–1932]. Istoriya russkoy literaturnoy kritiki: sovetskaya i postsovetskaya epokhi [History of Russian Literary Criticism: Soviet and Post-Soviet Eras]. Moscow: NLO Publ., 2011, pp. 142–206. (in Russ.). Dobrenko E. [The Red Day of the Calendar. Soviet Man between Time and History]. Sovetskoe bogatstvo. Stat’i o kul’ture, literature i kino [Soviet Wealth. Articles on Culture, Literature and Cinema]. Saint Petersburg: Akademicheskiy proekt Publ., 2002, pp. 97–123. (in Russ.). Dobrenko E. Politekonomiya sotsrealizma [The Political Economy of Socialist Realism]. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie Publ., 2007. (in Russ.). Gramatchikova N. B., Enina L. V. Pervostroiteli Uralmasha kak performativnyy proekt: konstruirovanie zavodskoy identichnosti [The First Builders of Uralmash as a Performative Project: Constructing Factory Identity]. Ekaterinburg; Moscow: Kabinetnyy uchenyy Publ., 2021. (in Russ.). Gramatchikova N. B., Rozhkova T. I. [Construction of Identity in Magnitka’s Working Poetry: Memory as Resource]. Ural’skij istoricheskij vestnik [Ural Historical Journal], 2019, no. 2 (63), pp. 14–21. (in Russ.). Gyunter Kh. [Artistic Avant-Garde and Socialist Realism]. Sotsrealisticheskiy kanon [The Socialist Realist Canon]. Saint Petersburg: Akademicheskiy proekt Publ., 2000, pp.101–108. (in Russ.). Klark K. [The Positive Hero as a Verbal Icon]. Sotsrealisticheskiy kanon [The Socialist Realist Canon]. Saint Petersburg: Akademicheskiy proekt Publ., 2000, pp. 569–584. (in Russ.). Klark K. Sovetskiy roman: istoriya kak ritual [The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual]. Ekaterinburg: Izdatel’stvo Ural’skogo universiteta Publ., 2002. (in Russ.). Levchenko M. A. Industrial’naya svirel’: Poeziya Proletkul’ta 1917–1921 gg. [The Industrial Flute: Proletkult Poetry, 1917–1921]. Saint Petersburg: SPGUDT Publ., 2007. (in Russ.). Mentsel’ B. [Traditions and Innovation]. Sotsrealisticheskiy kanon [The Socialist Realist Canon]. Saint Petersburg: Akademicheskiy proekt Publ., 2000, pp. 492–502. (in Russ.). Zemshal P. [Metaphorical Descriptions of “The Area of Combat” in the Soviet Ideological Discourse About Culture]. Politicheskaya kommunikatsiya: perspektivy razvitiya nauchnogo napravleniya [Political Communication: Prospects for the Development of a Scientific Direction]. Ekaterinburg: UrGPU Publ., 2014, pp. 90–94. (in Russ.). Zykin I. V. [Results of the Implementation of the Industrial Project during the Existence of the Ural Oblast]. Ural’skaya oblast’ v 1923–1934 gg.: vzgliad cherez 100 let [The Ural Oblast in 1923–1934: A View through 100 Years]. Ekaterinburg: IIiA UrO RAN; Ural’skiy institut upravleniya — filial RANKhiGS Publ., 2025, pp. 57–68. (in Russ.). Zyryanov O.V., Snigireva T. A., Sozina E. K., Podlubnova Yu. S. et. al. Evolyutsiya zhanrov v literature Urala XVII–XX vv. v kontekste obshcherossiyskikh protsessov [The Evolution of Genres in the Literature of the Urals in the 17th–20th Centuries in the Context of All-Russian Processes]. Ekaterinburg: UrO RAN Publ., 2010. (in Russ.). |
||
| Download in PDF | |||
