Georgy Vladimov: biography. The novel "The General and his army"

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Georgy Vladimov is a writer and literary critic. The most significant works of this author are the novel "The General and His Army", the stories "Faithful Ruslan" and "Big Ore". What are the reviews for these books? What is special about Vladimov's prose?

Biography

Vladimov Georgy Nikolaevich was born in 1931. Father and mother were philologists. The future writer was orphaned early. After the death of his parents, he was brought up in the family of the writer Dmitry Stonov.

Georgy Vladimov graduated from the Faculty of Law, but after receiving his diploma he decided to devote himself to literature. In the early seventies, his critical writings gained notoriety. In the same years, the duties of the editor of the Novy Mir magazine were carried out by Georgy Vladimov.

The biography of this writer is closely connected with the socio-political situation that prevailed in the country during the Brezhnev era. As you know, these years were unfavorable for the creativity of authors who preferred to raise sharp questions in their writings.

Early creativity

In 1960, after visiting the Kursk magnetic anomaly, Georgy Vladimov wrotea story that resonates with society. The work is called "Big Ore". In the years when the story was written, some opposition had already begun to appear among the Soviet intelligentsia. It had a hidden character and was expressed, as a rule, in reading and discussing literature that did not correspond to Soviet ideology. The program of the so-called sixties also included "Big Ore".

Georgy Vladimov published his next work only nine years later. "Three Minutes of Silence" - this is the name of the second story of the author, who in the late sixties already belonged to the category of "forbidden" - was published in full thirty-five years after writing. The work has a confessional character. The book reflects the everyday life of a fishing liner. Before writing the story, the writer worked for several months as a sailor on a Murmansk seiner.

Faithful Ruslan

Vladimov's style of writing was appreciated by critics. The features of his prose are authenticity, lyricism, accusatory motives. In 1975, the story "Faithful Ruslan" was published. The story about a devoted Soviet camp guard was published for the first time in Germany.

The book tells how a dog protects a person from his own kind. About how she controls the life of some two-legged, who are under the supervision of others. Vladimov spoke about the tragedy of the time in which he lived. But he did it from a special angle.

Prohibited activities

Vladimov's desire to cover topics thatit was dangerous to speak in Soviet society, led to the fact that he was expelled from the Writers' Union. Literary and social activities certainly did not end there.

The writer in the late seventies led an organization banned in the country. This association was called Amnesty International. Like other Soviet authors who were refused publication at home, the hero of this article published his works abroad. And in 1982, in order to avoid arrest, the writer Georgy Vladimov emigrated.

It is worth paying more attention to the book that was already mentioned in the article. In 1994, Georgy Vladimov completed writing the most famous work. The General and His Army is a sensational novel. Disputes about the reliability of the facts that formed the basis of this work, critics are still today.

The General and his army

For this novel, the author was awarded the Booker Prize. Before the award was given, there were literary disputes around the book. They were caused by the fact that in the work of Vladimov the war is covered from an unusual point of view. One of the critics noted that the opinion about the book is erroneous. The impression that the novel takes place in the Soviet Union in the early forties is misleading. After all, a general named Kobrisov is unknown in national history. The cities of Myryatin and Predslavl never existed in the USSR either. Vladimov's novel, according to critic O. Davydov, cannot be called historical at all.

In the work "The General and his army"psychological problems, addictions and prejudices associated with the fate of the author are depicted. The military realities that are present in the novel play the role of a kind of entourage that sets off events from the life of the writer that are not related to the Second World War.

According to Oleg Davydov, it is impossible to condemn Vladimov for using unreliable data. The novel "The General and His Army" is not a historical work, but rather an autobiographical one. What questions did the author raise in the sensational book?

The commander-in-chief summons the hero of the novel. Kobrisov committed some misconduct, for which he must be punished. But at the last moment the situation changes. His action was crowned with success, and he happily returns. This is the plot of the book. Its idea is that there is a higher court. And this, according to Davydov, is the main idea of the book. Military events are just a background with which the writer expressed his idea. However, the book contains both fictional characters and real ones.

The content of Davydov's critical article on Vladimov's work boils down to the fact that there is no and cannot be historicity in the novel. Nevertheless, the positive feedback from readers is based precisely on the peculiar depiction of military events.

Germany

In exile, the writer continued his literary and social activities. He worked for two years in the magazine "Frontiers". During the perestroika period, his works gradually began to appear in domestic magazines.

In 1990, Vladimov restored Soviet citizenship. At the beginning of the 2000s, he lived in the legendary writers' village in the southwestcapital Cities. Vladimov Georgy Nikolaevich died in October 2003. The writer was buried in Moscow, at the cemetery in Peredelkino.