Article

Name: “Instant old man” in Konstantin Vaginov’s novel “Garpagoniana” (“returned youth” as a plot of the socialist reconstruction era)

Authors: Ya. D. Chechnev

А. M. Gorky Institute of World Literature RAS Moscow, Russian Federation

In the section Study of literature

Abstract: The paper examines the image of Lokonov, a character in Konstantin Vaginov’s novel “Garpagoniana,” a “mechanical citizen” of the socialist reconstruction era who wants to regain his youth. Starting from the text of “The returned youth” by Zoshchenko, Vaginov creates a double of the main character on the principle of mirroring. This idea is supported by several facts: similarity of characters names, opposite ages, social and financial status, portrait characteristics. Unlike Volosatov (“The returned youth”), striving to follow the trends of the era and keep up with the times, Lokonov makes a number of unsuccessful attempts to rejuvenate himself in order to regain subjectivity. In the desire to regain his youth, Lokonov refuses a retrospective image of himself as he considers the projection reflected in the diaries as well as the possibility of nuancing memories through things to be unsatisfactory. Deliberately cutting off his past, Lokonov bets on the present: through his love for Yulenka, he hopes to regain his youth, but he does not succeed. Failures accompany Lokonov because he consciously emasculates his own past, remains inactive in the present, and, according to the author, cannot count on the future. For Lokonov, being young is a vague ideal of feeling young. He tries to “resurrect” these feelings by means of others without understanding the reasons.

Keywords: Vaginov, Garpagoniana, youth, old age, Zoshchenko, Kozakov, socialist reconstruction, the first five-year plan

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