Cult and Mass Literature

Mikhail Zoshchenko’s Pushkin Feuilletons in the Satirical Papers of the 1920s

Abstract

The study examines Mikhail Zoshchenko’s Pushkin feuilletons that appeared in the satirical papers of the 1920s based on the text variants published in the paper and the context of their original place of publication. The Coffin Maker (1927) and A Rifle for Pushkin (1928) are highly important textual spaces of urban cultural memory, foundational texts of Pushkin’s image in mass culture that were shaped by the press to a significant extent, as well as artistic pieces of the literary representation of the Pushkin cult of the time, not independently of this unique space. The study emphasizes three characteristics of Zoshchenko’s feuilletons: the first originates in the transitional genre of the feuilleton, the second in the intermediality of the pieces, while the third comes from the author’s ties to Leningrad. This connection simultaneously represents the author’s attachment to the symbolic and cultural spaces of the city, as well as a deep understanding of this so-called “Petersburg text”, i.e. the mythical and literary representation of this objectified and intellectual past.