On trial

Mikhail Bakhtin and Abram Tertz's address to "God"

Lewis Owens

pp. 73-80

in: Williams Ortiz Gaye, Clara B. Joseph (eds), Theology and literature, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006

Abstract

The literary work of Mikhail Bakhtin and Andrey Sinyavsky (also known as Abram Tertz) can be fully understood in the light of their critical responses to the Soviet doctrine of socialist realism, which was officially introduced in 1932. This doctrine advocated that all art should be realistic, optimistic, and heroic, and conversely all forms of degenerate and pessimistic experimentalism should be denounced as anti-Soviet. Both Bakhtin and Sinyavsky offer their own original responses to the static and preordained dictates of socialist realism: for Bakhtin, this led to prioritizing open-ended dialogue and "otherness' within a text, whilst for Sinyavksy it led to an emphasis on the fantastic and grotesque, reminiscent of nineteenth-century Russian literature, most notably Gogol. Nevertheless Bakhtin, by proclaiming the existence of a 'superaddressee" or "God" who ultimately stands outside of history and "judges' the text, remains essentially modern in his thought, whereas Sinyavsky refuses the existence of a meta-historical and eschatological "Judge" and argues instead that any ultimate purpose or "God" must remain relative to the current historical era. The thought of Sinyavky, therefore, has more relevance and importance to any contemporary discussion on the meaning and use of the word "God."

Cited authors

Bachtin Michajl

Tertz Abram