Cultural and historical aspects of comprehending the personality of the scientist in Olexander Kron’s novel “Insomnia”

Abstract

The article shows various aspects of the formation, development and deformation of the personality of the “Soviet man”, a scientist, and an intellectual, using the example of Alexander Kron’s novel “Insomnia”. The study touched on broad layers of Soviet reality, namely: the peculiarities of the problem of the transmission of human emotions in the context of socialist realism are highlighted, a number of examples are analyzed that demonstrate the personality traits of the Soviet scientist (the protagonist of the novel) by revealing his character and attitude to reality in various plot situations.

Particular attention is paid to the historical and cultural context of the narrative, to the coverage of the topic of interpersonal relations in the USSR and the influence of everyday life on the sense of the “Soviet man”.

One of the main factors influencing the formation of personality in the twentieth century was the Second World War. The article provides examples of the use of various events and circumstances of the war as psychological markers. It is indicated that A. Kron’s novel “Insomnia” is autobiographical in nature; some facts of the writer’s career are given. For a deeper coverage of the overall picture, the article presents fragments of Yuri Trifonov’s story “Students”, which reveals the nature of complex and contradictory situations in the context of military operations.

Particular importance in the article is given to the problems of attitude to the “enemy”, the cruelty of the military tribunal of the Red Army, the issues of occupation, military prostitution and trophies, which are mentioned in the novel "Insomnia". The courage of A. Kron to touch upon the “uncomfortable” topics of the Soviet period is indicated.

The novel "Insomnia" was written on behalf of its main character Oleg Yudin - the reader learns all events through the prism of his perception. The idea of a kind of “trial” of the protagonist over himself is indicated. The theme of the “trial” was demonstrated using examples of the work of Franz Kafka (the novel “The Process”). The main difficulty for O. Yudin is the doubt of the correctness of moral choice in a given situation. In the novel, the issue of the unsettled life of the “Soviet man” was raised with particular bitterness. For a larger display of this factor, fragments of Vladimir Orlov’s novel “Altist Danilov” are given. The tremendous dependence of the “Soviet man” on the issues of “arranging life” and the impossibility in the overwhelming majority of cases to solve “minor” everyday problems without emotional and moral losses are shown.