LITERARY REPRESENTATION OF THE SOVIET REGIME IN GURAM RCHEULISHVILI’S FICTION AND DOCUMENTARY PROSE

Abstract

The research deals with an important aspect of Guram Rcheulishvili’s works. He lived in the Soviet system, when conformism prevailed in the society as a result of long repressions, and even those, who could not get used to the totalitarian regime, could not express it directly. Their protest was disguised in the themes chosen for writing, in the characters, and the various means of artistic expression. The present study confirms that Guram Rcheulishvili’s works reflect important features of the communist regime: ideological pressure, bloody terror, standardization of public taste, thinking and behaviour, levelling of personal dignity, restriction of rights and isolation from the outside world, false equality, complacency, and intolerance of dissent etc.

The writer was well aware that a work that did not fit into this framework could never be published. Thus, he was forced to disguise what he had to say in such a way that he could sneak up on censorship or simply write it down and put it in a drawer in the hope that it would reach the reader someday.

Some modern studies have pointed out that after the collapse of the Soviet system, Georgia did not create regime-denouncing prose. The results of the present study clearly confirm that this conclusion should be reconsidered at least in relation to Guram Rcheulishvili. The inadmissibility of the regime is evident in his writings. A fictional word does not have the sharpness that a political or publicist text can have, but its impact and effect are far greater.

Keywords: communist regime, terror, conformism, censorship, propaganda, representation, fiction, documentary prose