The Art of Compromise : : The Life and Work of Leonid Leonov, 1899-1994 / / Boris Thomson.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter UTP eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2015
• VerfasserIn: Thomson, Boris,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2016]; ©2001
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource

Although the Russian novelist and playwright Leonid Leonov had published extensively before 1917 he considered that his literary career began only in 1922 with the short story Buryga. His talent developed rapidly in the comparatively free cultural climate of the first decade of the Revolution and by 1927 his characteristic style and themes were already formed. It was in this year, however, that the Communist Party began to impose its demands on the artists and intellectuals.Leonov's beliefs and values were incompatible with the Soviet version of Marxism but he tried to affirm them indirectly in his work through structure, imagery and allusion, while outwardly conforming to official demands. This manoeuvring inevitably led him into some questionable compromises which in turn damaged his reputation, both at home and abroad. Leonov himself was painfully conscious of the moral dilemmas involved and his later works return again and again to the question: is it possible to compromise without being compromised?There are fourteen chapters in the volume, each devoted to one or more of Leonov's works, setting the successive stages of his evolution against a background of changing cultural and political policies.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- A Note on Transliteration -- 1. Early Years and Literary Debut -- 2. The Badgers 1924 -- 3. The Thief 1921 -- 4. Stories and Plays 1927-1928 -- 5. The Sot' and Locusts 1930-1931 -- 6. Skutarevsky 1932 -- 7. The Road to Ocean 1935 -- 8. Three Plays 1936-1940 -- 9. The War Years 1941-1945 -- 10. An Ordinary Man and A Golden Coach 1940-1946 -- 11. The Russian Forest 1953 -- 12. The Late Revisions 1955-1962 -- 13. The Pyramid 1994 -- 14. The Art of Compromise -- Appendix: 'Zapis'na bereste' -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index