Rinascite occidentali della ‘lagernaja literatura’

Andrea Gullotta

doi:10.13125/2039-6597/300

Andrea Gullotta University of Padua

DOI: https://doi.org/10.13125/2039-6597/300

Keywords: Gulag Literature, Travis Holland, Martin Amis, House of Meetings, The Archivist's Story, Soviet repression and literature

Abstract

This paper aims to study a phenomenon that, to date, has received scant attention: the rebirth of the literary genre lagernaya literatura (literature related to the theme of Soviet repression). This study analyzes it in the Anglo-Saxon context through two novels, Martin Amis' The House of Meetings and Travis Holland's The Archivist's Story.

After a brief introduction devoted to Russia's current controversial relationship with the memory of its tragic past within the literary field, the paper delves into the characteristics of the two texts, seen as an extension of a literary genre exhausted in its country of origin and reborn in the West.

The paper shows the correspondences between the two novels and the tradition of Russian lagernaya literatura, both at a thematic and at a stylistic level, and highlights the common characteristics and the differences, as well as the different narrative approaches of the two authors.

Author Biography

Andrea Gullotta, University of Padua

Andrea Gullotta was born in 1981 and obtained his PhD in Slavic Studies at the University of Padua in April 2011; with his dissertation titled The ‘Paris of the Northern Concentration Camps’: The Intellectual Life and Literature of the Solovki Prison Camp Between 1923 and 1930. His main research interests are Gulag literature; Gulag cultural history; and Samizdat literature. He has taught Russian language and literature at the University of Palermo and currently holds a post-doctoral research grant at the University of Padua.

References

Amis, Martin, Koba the Dread (2002), trad. it. Koba il terribile: una risata e venti milioni di morti, Ed. Norman Gobetti, Torino, Einaudi, 2005

Id., The house of meetings (2006), trad. it. La casa degli incontri, di G. Granato, Torino, Einaudi, 2008.

Applebaum, Anne, Gulag: a History, New York, Doubleday, 2003.

Covacich, Mauro, “L’inconscio ucciso dalla narrativa”, Corriere della Sera, 5 marzo 2000.

Gori, Francesca, Gulag: Il sistema dei Lager in URSS, Milano, Mazzotta, 2004.

Holland, Travis, The Archivist’Story (2007), trad. it. Storia di un archivista, Ed. Elisa Banfi, Parma, Guanda, 2008.

Langbein Hermann, Uomini ad Auschwitz, Milano, Mursia, 1984.

Mallon, Thomas, “In the Shadow of the Gulag”, The Washington Post, 14 January 2007.

Manera, Livia, “L’archivista che ‘salvò’ Babel”, Corriere della Sera, 21 febbraio 2008.

Solženicyn, Aleksandr, Arkhipelag GULAG (1973), trad. it. Arcipelago Gulag, Ed. Maria Olsùfieva, Milano, Mondadori, 1974.

Valle, Roberto, Recensione a T. Holland, Storia di un archivista, L’Indice dei libri del mese, giugno 2008.

The Western Rebirth of ‘lagernaya literatura’

Abstract

Author Biography

References