Konstantin Paustovskii’s Memoirs as an Intergenerational Landmark

Abstract

This article analyzes the reception of the six-part memoir cycle by Konstantin Paustovskii, published in 1946-63, and the discussions about it among professional critics, writers, and non-professionals. Using the concept of a memory episteme coined by Hans Brockmeier, I propose that Paustovskii positioned his autobiographical cycle between three memory epistemes. The first, which can be called the episteme of the lost world, originated towards the end of World War II. The second, which can be called the episteme of ideological purity, was characteristic of the years of the fight against cosmopolitanism (1948–53) and was, therefore, somewhat neglected in Paustovskii’s works. However, it remained relevant even after Stalin’s death, which forced Paustovskii to modify some of the episodes of his life or to silence them. The third episteme was launched by Novyi mir magazine not long before the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party. It was related to the idea of deep personal involvement in the Russian Revolution and the Civil War, including the traumatic losses of the Great Terror. Paustovskii’s own memory episteme, which he started promoting after 1953, involved popularizing a revival of the life-creation and life-writing strategies of the modernist era, while also giving the Novyi mir episteme of personal involvement in Big History its due. Whereas older generations of readers saw this revival of modernist strategies culturally insignificant and derivative, younger readers perceived it as innovative and stimulating by the younger readers.