Reflections on A. Korevanova’s Book “My Life” (1936),
which Arose under the Influence of the Revised Edition
“Her Life” (2020)
The article provides an experience of reflexive reading of the autobiographical book of the
Ural “peasant – worker” Agrippina Korevanova “My Life”, published in 1936 by the Moscow
publishing house “History of Plants”, using the method of analyzing the narrative through
‘four readings’, focusing attention step by step on the plot and the reader’s reaction, the narrator’s I and the voices of Others, on cultural contexts and social structures. Press responses,
Korevanova’s correspondence with publishers and other archival materials are used as context. A special place in this large hypertext is occupied by the revised work within the educational student project of the Ural Federal University, published in 2020 under the title “Her
Life”. It focuses on the relevance of trauma talk and Agrippina’s purely personal life story,
which gives a basis for polemical discussion.
The peculiarity of the narrative, which at one time “did not give in” to such venerable editors
as A. Tikhonov and M. Gorky, and which modern publishers are trying to eliminate, is the
lack of coherence and consistency. According to the author of the article, this characteristic
incoherence highlights the desire inherent in the construction of the text to combine the passive role of the heroine with her inexhaustible activity.
The main and most interesting topic seems to be writing and, more broadly, mastery of the
word. Korevanova struggled to enter the world of literature and it is in this field that the rejection of her auto heroine and her own are most dramatic: unrequited requests for help in “writing” (preserved in her archival fund), and difficult relations with the local writing community,
and, finally, the multiple edits and shortenings that haunt the work today as well as in 1930s.
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Reflections on A. Korevanova’s Book “My Life” (1936),
which Arose under the Influence of the Revised Edition
“Her Life” (2020) // Сюжетология и сюжетография. 2021. № 1. Pp. 79–102. DOI: 10.25205/2410-7883-2021-1-79-102.