The book analyses - with reference to the Soviet socialist realism - the relations between the structure/semantics of the literary text and its ideological and political context. Focusing on works typical of the socialist realism as well as on its subversive exponents (including books by Kharms, Bulgakov, Ehrenburg, Prishvin) the author claims that the dominant aesthetics influenced not only the mainstream socialist-realist texts, but also shaped the ways in which the main doctrine was questioned and opposed. Contents: Ideology, literature, aesthetics, socialist realism - 20th-Century Russian literature - Kharms, Bulgakov, Ehrenburg, Prishvin. The Author: Piotr Fast is Professor of Russian literature and translation studies at the University of Silesia. He has published widely on 20th Century Russian literature and theory of literature. His publications include books on socialist realism in the Soviet Union, post-war Russian literature, Joseph Brodsky, Ilia Ehrenburg, Mikhail Bulgakov.
