Was there Nevsky? Ideology and Poetics of V. M. Shukshin’s Story “Conversations under a Clear Moon”

Abstract

The article deals with the problematic issues and poetics of Shukshin’s story “Conversations under a Clear Moon”. Despite the fact that the title of the story contains the word “conversations”, there is no truly dialogical relations between the characters. The characters of the story, in fact, speak different languages. They need an interpreter, since they themselves do not understand interlocutor's speech well. The emergence of a language barrier between compatriots is natural. This is a consequence of the story’s character loss of identity: national, social and even gender. The writer focuses on the features of “non-Russianness” in the appearance, speeches, mentality of the main character - old man Baev. The process of losing national identity goes so far for Baev that he even puts forward an absurd hypothesis about his American origin. The interlocutor of Baev, Marya Selezneva, generally loses not only social, but also gender identity. The artistic world of the story “Conversations under a Clear Moon” is largely simulative. It is so illusory that the characters in the story cannot distinguish day from night, the moon from the sun. The line between (pseudo)life and death is practically erased in the story.