Paradoxes of Historical Memory in A. Tvardovsky’s Post-War Poems

• Main Author: Ilya B. Nichiporov
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University) 2021-12-01
• Series: RUDN Journal of Studies in Literature and Journalism
• Subjects: tvardovsky; the genre of the poem; the theme of memory; history and modern times; the cult of the political leader
• Online Access: http://journals.rudn.ru/literary-criticism/article/viewFile/26934/19609
• ISSN: 2312-9220; 2312-9247

The article deals with the modern interpretation of four post-war poems by A.T. Tvardovsky: House by the Road, Beyond Distance, Tyorkin in the Other World, By Right of Memory , which were insufficiently studied in the previous research works. The main idea is focused on the artistic embodiment of historical thinking in these works. The main feature of these works is a contradictory combination of utopian consciousness and the dystopian mood of the lyric hero, who is pondering over personal and historical memory. The author concludes that Tvardovskys post-war poems capture the paradoxes of the historical thinking of a personality who, on the one hand, gets out of the influence of the dominant ideology, and on the other hand, demonstrates an apologetic attitude towards the key concepts and mythologems of totalitarian discourse. The hero of Tvardovskys later poems appears as a front-line soldier, an artist, a publicist, an analyst of modern times, a prescient; he wanders the roads of the past and present, at the crossroads of personal and historical memory, gets even to death, goes on believing in the mission of the political leaders, the a priori truth of the Country and the People inspired by dystopian impulses and sees mysteries of history through his destiny.