A Dialectical Skazka: Depicting Nature’s Transformation during the First Five‐Year Plan

Abstract

AbstractThis paper looks at how a metaphoric vocabulary borrowed from the skazka was used to illustrate dialectical materialism in popular science writing of the early 1930s. In examining the emergence and function of this new style, which I term “dialectical skazochnost',” I offer an explanation of the animated nature trope, which appeared frequently in texts for young readers during the First Five‐Year Plan. Rather than contradicting materialism, the anthropomorphization of non‐living matter in stories about “conquering nature” arose out of an effort to illustrate how natural forces previously considered immutable could be transformed for human use. A popular conception of dialectical materialism guided this use of figurative language, which had been scorned by radical critics during the skazka debates of the late 1920s. I look primarily at two books by M. Il'in, The Story of the Great Plan (1930) and Men and Mountains (1935), which exemplify the use of dialectical skazochnost'.