Comrade Pavlik: The Rise and Fall of a Soviet Boy Hero by Catriona Kelly

Abstract

614 Reviews autobiographical work Before Sunrise. She gives a comprehensive account of the cri tical reception of hiswritings, and draws upon recently discovered sources such as the lengthyessay on her husband and his work thatVera Zoshchenko addressed directly toStalin inSeptember 1946. The successful comic writing duo of Il'f and Petrov created the immensely popular prince of rogues, Ostap Bender; to this day theirworks command print runs in the millions, and umpteen phrases from the twoBender novels have passed into common parlance, reflecting an ironic distance from themore crass aspects of Soviet life.But this isnot themore traditionalGogolian 'laughter through tears' thathas shaped the bitter-sweet Russian comic tradition; the supremely intellectual poet Mandel'shtam commended thework's sheermerriment, and decried the failure of thecritical estab lishment to celebrate the instant popular appeal of The Twelve Chairs when it first appeared. Like Zoshchenko, thesewriters were by no means anti-Soviet; theywere patriotic and sincere in their faith in socialism, even if they had a keen ear for the hypocritical and the absurd in contemporary life.As Milne points out, both novels enact the triumph of Soviet ideology while at the same time eliciting the reader's sympathy for theirne'er-do-well protagonist. She also provides fascinating accounts of theduo's activities as satirical journalists, as theybegan towrite in 1932 under the ironic name of F Tolstoevsky forjournals such asKrokodil and Ogonek, as well as a regular column under the title of 'The Cool Philosopher' forLiteraturnaia Gazeta; they also began towrite regularly under their own names forPravda. In joining the Party's most loyal publication theywere able to offer a humorous but nevertheless pointed commentary on developments in literarypolitics such as the disbanding of RAPP and the creation of theUnion of Soviet Writers. The approval of theirworks high up inofficial circles offered them opportunities of travel abroad denied tomany of their fellowwriters, firstly toEurope in 1933-34 and then to theUSA in 1935. It also allowed them to overcome the difficulty theywere finding in creating a third Bender novel; instead, they travelled thousands ofmiles all over America as cultural ambassadors, reporting back on their admiration for the high standard of living en joyed by every ordinary American citizen in their travelogue, Bungalow America. It has only recently emerged that they also wrote a lengthy letter directly to Stalin as soon as they returned inFebruary I936, urging him toorganize visits toAmerica for regional Party officials, so that people could see for themselves the high standards of service and consumer comfort a great socialist state should aspire to.Milne has also been able to draw on the archive of photographs and documents maintained by Il'f's daughter Aleksandra, aswell as his notebooks, which were edited and published in 2000. These lend detail and authenticity to her account of Il'f's lifeup until his early demise in 1937, and shed lighton the only significantwork Petrov wrote after his partner's death, his own Reminiscences ofIlf, published in 1939. Petrov also died young, in 1942: he was killed in an air crash while working as awar correspondent. WOLFSON COLLEGE,OXFORD JULIECURTIS Comrade Pavlik: The Rise and Fall of a Soviet Boy Hero. By CATRIONA KELLY. London: Granta. 2005. 324 pp. /I7.99. ISBN 978-I-86207-747-8. In early September 1932, thirteen-year-old Pavel Morozov and his younger brother Fedor, returning home from picking berries near their native Gerasimovka (Tavda District, Western Siberia), were brutallymurdered. Little else isclear: who murdered them and why? Had Pavel, as some accounts assert, denounced his own father? If so, why? Sifting through an enormous amount of archival evidence, including first-time access toFSB (KGB) police files, Catriona Kelly leaves a finalaccounting of theevents MLR, I02.2, 2007 615 open-ended, yet hermost likely scenario suggests Pavel's cousin Danila and Danila's neighbour Efrem Shatrakov as the strongest suspects. As forPavel's legendary de nunciation of his own father, Kelly findsdocuments but declares no proof. If I give away thisending unwisely, it isbecause theoverriding value of thebook liesnot in its irrefutableproof but in its intellectual depth, engagement, and thequality of research. Indeed, one of Kelly's greatest strengths is her discomfort with any premature...