Duality and simulacrum in the artistic world of V.M. Shukshin

In his youth, Shukshin “half-jokingly tried to resemble the “great ones”. Jack London, Lenin, even Stalin”. After the twentieth Congress of the CPSU, Shukshin radically changed his life-creating guidelines. During his studies at VGIK, Stepan Razin became his idol. Too abrupt a change in the model of everyday behavior indicates not so much the intensity of the young Shukshin’s search, as the presence of a serious internal conflict. The writer managed to solve psychological problems relatively successfully, but the heroes of his works often come to a complete rejection of the true Self in the name of the false Self. For example, the hero of the story “Milles pardon, Madame!”, on the one hand, constructs his fantastic false Self, on the other — is full of contempt for the authentic Self. It is characteristic that real life begins for Bron’ka only at the moment when he completely renounces his true Self. The tragic aspect of the theme of duality comes to the surface in the story “Suraz”. The coexistence of an “angel” and a “striped snake” in Spirka turns his persona into a Janus-like one. The hero is not engaged in constructing his “ideal Self”, a romantic double (Byron) is imposed on him from the outside. In this version, the outcome of the struggle with his “shadow” is the most dramatic, everything ends with suicide, which surprisingly resembles murder.