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Post a Comment The “Forgotten” Novel by N. Berberova: On the Creative History of the Cycle Billancourt Holidays
Abstract
The article examines the novel by N.Berberova Tverdotrubov (1930). In the first publication, the text had a subtitle—To the cycle of “Billancourt Holidays”, but in the 1970–1990s Berberova deliberately did not include this text into the said book and never published it again (unlike other novels). The reconstruction of the creative history of the cycle carried out in the article shows that Berberova’s work on her own style was more complex process, than she declared in the preface. Her work included not only serious reflections on creative technique, a close study of the predecessors’ and contemporaries’ artistic manner, but also the need to take into account public opinions on certain authors in the literary field. Tverdotrubov significantly stands out from the general logic of the writer’s evolution indicated by Berberova since it was written under the influence of F. Dostoevsky’s style. Unlike the previous stylistic guidelines of the 1920s (M. Zoshchenko and I. Babel), the public did not accept such a turn. As a result, Berberova had to change her literary strategy radically, focusing not so much on her own taste, but on the demands of the reading audience. The text of the story is republished below.
DOI: 10.31168/2305-6754.2025.1.12
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