Sous la loupe des écrivains contemporains. La nourriture ou son absence à l’époque soviétique, entre mythe et réalité

Abstract

Contemporary Russian Fiction on Food and its Absence in Soviet Times : Between Myth and Reality. the theme of food and its absence in the Soviet era appears in the works of many contemporary russian writers. on the one hand, literary works document food related material culture in Soviet times and the difficult relation with food in periods of shortage. they also document the lasting consequences of the absence of food, such as the fear of hunger or alimentary obsessions. on the other hand, several novels and stories by émigré writers tend to mirror the mythical dimension that food acquires in fantasy and recollection. numerous narrative threads revolve around food : to a certain extent food acts as a catalyser of introspective motives and psychological nuances, historical and domestic chronicles. the art of making a meal out of nothing mastered by the Soviet housewife is a topos in the works set in those years as is the case with the reflection on the tangle of feelings connected to hunger : distress, shame and fear. of course, the representation of food very often adjusts to the writers’ specific stylistic trends. but more generally, food is used as a metaphor, the symbol of a state of mind or the expression of a nostalgic feeling and provides us with a possible key to interpreting reality.