The Beginning of Documentary Prose in Russia: Works by S. Z. Fedorchenko

Abstract

Sofia Zakharovna Fedorchenko is a little known, though highly interesting writer, one of the early representatives of the ‘nonfiction novel’. Her main work is the trilogy The People at War, later defined as an ‘oratoria novel’. The first part of the trilogy is based on the materials that were collected by Fedorchenko among ordinary soldiers between 1914 and 1917 while she was serving at the front near St Petersburg as a Sister of Mercy. She decided to write down what she remembered because she wanted to commemorate simple soldiers’ perceptions of the Great War. Her method was simple and unusual: she put together fragments of talks, sayings, conversations, and songs she had heard among soldiers in the front hospital. The final version of the first volume is divided into eight thematic chapters, each of them containing mutually supporting and contradicting statements, and a variety of different points of view and experiences. This random logic conveys the lively and changeable atmosphere of real life. Sofia Fedorchenko became a demanded and most often published author. The first volume of the trilogy was one of the most wanted books until 1928. Fedorchenko ma­naged to publish the second volume based on folk materials, collected by her between February and November 1917. The third volume, devoted to the Civil War period, was ready to be published as well; however, it had to wait until 1983. Beginning from the mid-1920s, Fedorchenko started to be criticised from different sides.

Keywords

• Софья Федорченко
• документальная проза
• Первая мировая война
• русская революция
• Гражданская война
• история России начала ХХ в.