ПАМЯТЬ СОВЕТСКОГО МИРА В РАССКАЗЕ БЕЛЫЕ СТЕНЫ ТАТЬЯНЫ ТОЛСТОЙ

Memories of the Soviet World in the Short Story White Walls by Tatyana Tolstaya. In Tatyana Tolstaya’s fiction and essays, memory of the Soviet past does not seem to occupy a central position, lingering somehow in the background despite clearly be a source of inspiration for the writer. In her stories, one can glimpse several moments revealing the narrator’s relationship to the memory of the Soviet era and traditional life, mainly through the description of material objects, customs, family relations, social rituals, and cultural myths. “White Walls” is a fascinating example of a reminiscence devoid of nostalgia for a two-sided perceived world: while the chronological distance from the Soviet era is insignificant, the cultural distance is irreplaceable. In fiction, the story turns out to be a memoiristic work, whereas the cultural memory of Soviet civilisation identifies itself with the objects that the pharmacist Jansson, of Swedish origin, once kept in his dacha, built in 1948 and later bought by the narrator’s family. The aim of this article is to explore the theme of memory in the short story White walls and offer some brief reflections on its twofold chronological and culturally perceptive aspect.