The history of Russian literature holds many wonderful examples of art written in various genres. However, the 20th century most fully elucidated the problem of the need to create a new novel, combining realism, science fiction, satire, and appeal to philosophy and sociology. Most fully, all this was embodied in the novel "Yawning Heights", the author of which was the Soviet scientist and sociologist A. Zinoviev.
The story of the appearance of the book in print
Zinoviev’s book was first published in 1976 in Switzerland. At that time, its author was a disgraced but prominent Soviet sociologist and philosopher, doctor of sciences and professor.
The book "Yawning Heights" caused a public outcry in both Western countries and the USSR. And if in the West they saw sharp and satirical criticism of Soviet reality in it, and the book as a whole was accepted positively, then in the USSR its publication was regarded as a betrayal of the homeland, which forced A. Zinoviev to leave the country to emigrate.
Alexander Zinoviev "Yawning Heights." Summary of the work
The work tells the story of the city of Ibansk and its inhabitants. Moreover, the author's descriptions are quite comical and resemble the prose of N.V. Gogol and M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. "Yawning Heights" is generally an interesting work. This is an anti-utopia, and a sharp social satire, and a new sociological novel in which the author-scientist expresses his scientific theories in an artistic way.
The author offers various types of his contemporaries. These are officials who are ready for any dirty tricks to achieve their goals, hiding behind the noble slogans of building communism, these are people from the intelligentsia, some of whom dream of Western values, and some are frank talkers.
There is no clear plot in the work; the composition of the novel obeys the laws of the logic of philosophical research.
What was the reason for writing the book?
Many books have been written by Alexander Zinoviev over his long life, “Gaping Heights” refers to one of his epochal creations.
The reasons for writing this book have accumulated a lot. First of all, Zinoviev, as a conscientious sociologist, could not help but see that the communist slogans about the imminent victory of socialism and the construction of a completely new state system on earth are far from their real embodiment. He saw the imperfection of the society in which he lived, was not afraid to write about it openly.
Of course, many of his contemporaries, who, formally being people of science or statesmen, simply sought to receive their benefits from the existing order of things and the existing social system, did not like this position of the scientist.
Such "Adaptists" and depicted with all the strength of his talent, the author in the work "Yawning Heights." Zinoviev, in general, in this first novel of his, demonstrated the full strength of both his erudition and scientific foresight of future social events.
Many of his contemporaries saw in the writer’s novel only anti-utopia and the exposure of communism, therefore the author was ranked among the dissidents, and Zinoviev was far from this circle.
Understanding the novel today
Today, the work “Yawning Heights” stands out among the works of Russian literature. It is, in essence, a socio-philosophical novel.
Modern readers are not always ready to take the book “Yawning Heights” from the shelf. This is due to the complexity of the writer's syllable and the fact that part of the realities about which he writes has already been lost.
However, this novel is a milestone in the writer's creative biography, therefore, without careful study of it, one cannot understand the essence of the philosophical and social concept of Zinoviev as a scientist.
By the way, in the last decades of his life, the author turned his attention to the modern capitalist world, and concluded that global capitalism, which will seek to rule the world after the death of the USSR, will become a huge evil for mankind.
The author expressed many bold thoughts in the book "Yawning Heights." Zinoviev was always brave, he went through the war, and persecuting his colleagues, and separation from his homeland, he had nothing to fear in life.
Therefore, today journalism and fiction by A. Zinoviev are more relevant than ever. And it’s not only about the novel “Yawning Heights”, the reviews of which have always been different, it’s all the legacy of the Russian philosopher and seer Alexander Alexandrovich Zinoviev.