Is the school for fools? Sasha Sokolov’s novel in the Russian and international context

About the authors:

Galina I. Danilina, Dr. Sci. (Philol.), Associate Professor, Department of Russian and Foreign Literature, University of Tyumen, Tyumen, Russia; g.i.danilina@utmn.ru, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0100-0948

Kseniya A. Grinyakina, Master Student, University of Tyumen, Tyumen, Russia; stud0000222851@study.utmn.ru, https://orcid.org/0009-0003-9335-945X

Abstract:

This article studies the narrative structure of Sasha Sokolov’s novel School for Fools. The focus lies on the school as the novel’s title image, which has been rarely considered in the Russian and global “school” context. The focus of the analysis is determined by the transtextuality of the novel as extrapolated to the school image. The chosen material includes the works referenced in the novel, namely, the Russian and Soviet “school novels”: Tyoma’s Childhood by N. G. Garin-Mikhailovsky, The Boy from Urzhum by A. Golubeva, The House on the Mountain by A. I. Musatov, and Vitya Maleev at School and at Home by N. N. Nosov. Additionally, H. Hesse’s novel The Glass Bead Game is mentioned as Sokolov references it in terms of the idea of free education and individual’s, which has not been covered sufficiently in research literature. The texts are analyzed in comparison at the narrative and conceptual-thematic levels. The results reveal additional conceptual meanings. According to the established point of view, the school in Sokolov’s novel is an object of satirical depiction. Yet, the context level analysis reveals more complex and ambivalent meanings: the ideological Soviet and utopian Western school models are paradoxically close to each other. In both cases, the models present a dream school, organized in accordance with social ideals; a “garden school,” where education follows social ideals. Whether the personal self is reduced to zero (in school novels) or it is carefully nurtured (The Glass Bead Game), the school narrative shows that the very purpose of school education requires the leveling of the individual to prepare students for their lives within the society. Thus, the satirical school narrative is not an end, but a means representative of and creating the grounds for the narrative of a creative personality.

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