Article: PDF
DOI: 10.26710/fk18-02-28
Abstract: This article deals with Lenin’s image in the epic “The Red Wheel” by A. Solzhenitsyn. The starting point for study is some excerpts from the diaries of A. Shmeman, which include the thought of the writer about the characters of “The Red Wheel”, who he feels very close. Among them are Colonel Vorotyntsev, Sanja Lazhenitsyn and V. I. Lenin. These characters are the main ones in the novel, their views are disclosed in the book in detail. A. Solzhenitsyn’s work on creation of Lenin’s image was analyzed by many researchers. Some of them denied the fact that the name of the author of “The Red Wheel” was mentioned in the context of the novel. This article does not try to compare real people to search for some similarities in them. It attempts to analyze the methods used by the writer to develop the key images of the epic. Special attention is drawn to the way of depicting the image “from the inside” and the stylistic adaptation of the author's speech in the chapters of the “Red Wheel” to the speech of the narrator. Solzhenitsyn’s personality traits in Lenin’s image are found during textual analysis of epics and comparison with the memoirs of the author. Among these traits are understanding the value of their own time, the rejection of compromise, illegal activities and many others. In the course of the study, the author comes to the conclusion that Solzhenitsyn when he created Lenin’s image, relied on his own experience and gave his character some of his own traits and habits. It emphasizes a diametrical opposition of the author’s and the hero’s axiology. Such a comparison does not discredit Solzhenitsyn and does not indicate the proximity of his views and ideological beliefs to Lenin’s ideas and ideology, but it only illustrates how complex, multifaceted and deep was the process of image creation of the famous revolutionary in the epic “The Red Wheel”.
Key words: RUSSIAN LITERATURE; RUSSIAN WRITERS; WRITING; LITERARY IMAGES; EPIC; OCTOBER REVOLUTION; HISTORICAL FIGURES

For citation

Zhuykova, E. V. About one of Lenin’s image prototipes in “The red wheel” by A. I. Solzhenitsyn / E. V. Zhuykova . In Philological Class. 2018. №2 (52). P. 172-176. DOI 10.26710/fk18-02-28.