Military fiction during the war (1941–1945 & 2022–2026): authors, images, meanings. Article I. 1941–1945

Abstract

The problems of literature on war have always interested researchers. In the case of the USSR and Russia, this interest was primarily focused on the Great Patriotic War (WWII), the victory in which became the most important state symbol. At the same time, approaches to the coverage of this war in fiction, as well as the evaluation of works, changed dynamically depending on the political situation of a certain period. A special feature of the article is the selec tion for the analysis of the most significant samples of fiction created by Soviet writers directly in the period 1941–1945, and a look at it both from the standpoint of Soviet times and today. In the second article, this block is compared with similar literature on the special military operation (SMO), where the focus is on the books of literary award winners and other publica tions that have attracted the most attention from readers and critics. This is the first study of its kind. The comparative analysis is carried out using the parameters selected by the author, which include the role and professional status, the features of the literary and artistic forms of the au thors’ works, the portrayal of the country, the battle space, the heroes and antiheroes, and the se mantic (interpretative) constructions surrounding the described events.