Trickster and Aviation: Deconstruction of the Soviet “Cultural Hero” in V. Shukshin’s Prose

This article examines the role of the strategy of play in the process of deconstructing socialist realism mythology, more particularly aviation discourse. The research focuses on works by V. M. Shukshin, whose artistic method incorporated both elements of traditionalist prose and play strategies of postmodernism. The author employs structural and typological methods and mythopoeic analysis. The writer’s work reached its zenith during the period of decomposition of the socialist realism canon, which led to the reflexive nature of the texts. One of the central characters in the writer’s artistic world is the maverick, a kind of antithesis to the socialist realist “positive hero”, whom contemporary researchers include in the trickster paradigm. The author analyses the functions of trickster characters associated with aviation at the plot level. Aviation discourse is fundamental to Soviet cultural mythology due to its close connection with the idea of the “new man” capable of becoming the hero of the era. In Shukshin’s texts, there is a deconstruction of the symbols of official culture associated with aviation. In contrast to the socialist realist aviator, a cultural hero, a trickster “aviator” appears. Although he is not a pilot by profession, he retains some of the characteristics of the ideal Soviet hero, which take on negative connotations. The canonical aviator is only mentioned, without being a character in the story, which symbolically refers to the idea of the impenetrability of the boundaries of utopia. The idea of flight in the writer’s prose is associated with motifs of fear, catastrophe, and death. The situation of travelling through the air is traumatic for the characters; only tricksters with the potential to overcome boundaries are capable of such a journey. In the image of an airplane, the villager perceives a machine devoid of soul, experiencing fear and bewilderment. From a child’s perspective, an aircraft – whether a toy or a broken one – becomes a vivid symbol of the Soviet utopia, whose boundaries are impenetrable. Shukshin’s use of polyphony in his prose allows for the exploration of artistic heterogeneity, as depicted through the perspectives of various characters. Such polyphony is characteristic of the writer’s strategy of play; it becomes one of the important tools for deconstructing the complexes of meaning in socialist realism, and the trickster is a key figure in this process.