The Return of Adventure Story of the 1920s

Abstract

This article by Evgeniia Putilova addresses the development of the adventure story genre, first created by writers with an existing literary reputation: Sergei Grigoryev, Sergei Auslender, S.Zayatsky, Lev Ostroumov, and Petr Blyakhin. These books were severely criticized in 1928 (this criticism was later summarized by Samuil Marshak) and this literature ceased to exist abruptly. None of the above-mentioned stories (with the exception of “Little Red Imps” by Blyakhin) was ever reprinted. The focus of this article is on the investigation of the development of the literary tradition; the adventure story of the 1920s borrowed largely from the popular examples in Russian and Western literature. It has also exercised deep influence over the later adventure stories, published by Arkadii Gaidar, Anatolii Rybakov, and Veniamin Kaverin.   Keywords: adventure literature, adventures, traditions, mystery, motif, plot, adversary, orphan, happy end