Post-Stalin and Postmodern Christs

Abstract

This concluding chapter provides observations about the image of Christ in works published after Joseph Stalin's death and after the demise of the Soviet Union. The Passion narrative in particular—so prominent in Bulgakov's and Pasternak's novels—continued to resonate, reappearing in works such as Venedikt Erofeev's Moscow to the End of the Line (1969, arguably a Christ novel in and of itself), Yury Dombrovsky's The Faculty of Useless Knowledge (1978), and Chingiz Aitmatov's The Place of the Skull (1987). The chapter briefly analyzes these works in the context of the four case studies. It also surveys the current literary interest in Christ and Christian themes. Finally, the chapter offers a few concluding remarks on the meaning of Christ in Russian literature.