On the Dating of Isaac Babel’s Short Story “Oil”

Isaac Babel’s short story “Oil” was published on February 14, 1934, in the newspaper Evening Moscow. The dating of the work has never been the subject of scientific research, whereas the events described in the story and the mentioned realities, which date back to the early 1930s, make it possible to clarify this aspect. Among them is the so-called Maikop fire at the oil and gas well No. 045 of the Maikopneft association in the area of the city of Neftegorsk, Krasnodar Territory, which burned from July 26, 1930 to April 7, 1931 (there is a reference to it only in the text of the typescript made for the Year XVI almanac).; the mention of the attachment of the characters of the work to the Department (State Department of Retail Trade) and the indication of the main character to her “own book,” which is an echo of the card system for basic food and industrial goods that existed in the USSR in the first half of the 1930s; the dramatic situation associated with oil production plans during the first five-year plan of 1928–1932. All this makes it possible to date the story relatively accurately, which apparently began work on no earlier than April 1, 1931, and ended by the spring of 1933, when the author handed it over to A.M. Gorky for a new periodical, the “Year XVI” almanac.