‘The same Alexey Tried...’: Historical Concept of the First Book of the Novel Peter the Great by A.N. Tolstoy in the Assessment of Soviet Criticism

Abstract

The research bases on reviews of Soviet critics collected and systematized for the first time on the works of A.N. Tolstoy dedicated to the Peter’s I epoch such as the story Peter’s Day (1918) and the play On the Rack (1929). These works directly related to the idea of the novel Peter the Great. As shown in the periodical press reviews of the play, as well as of the performance, soon to be staged by the Moscow Art Theater 2 (1929), their perception determined the tone of the papers dedicated to the first book of the novel Peter the Great (1930). The study provides an overview of all six reviews written by Boris Valbe, Gerge Gorbachev, Cornelii Zelinsky, Nikolai Jesuitov et al., and outlines their main provisions and comments. The main drawback, according to critics, was the lack of a Marxist understanding of history in the novel reflected in the selection of historical sources and facts and in the image of the main character, Peter I. Assessing the chronicle order of the composition of the work differently everyone noted the colorful language, cheery humor and dialogues. The reviews of 1931 shaped the main approaches to the evaluation of the novel which will be developed in 1935 after the release of the second book through the concept of a lonely ruler, historical parallelism, i. e. solving the issues of modernity based on the Peter’s epoch, reflection in the novel of the role of “trading capital”. The study of the reception of the first book by A.N. Tolstoy will allows us determining its role and significance in the historical and cultural context as well as — more broadly — considering the main approaches to the evaluation of the historical novels and the representation of images of historical figures in Soviet culture.