“The Soviet Abroad (That We Lost)”: The Fate of Vasilii Aksenov’s Cult Novel A Starry Ticket on Paper and on Screen
“The Soviet Abroad (That We Lost)”: The Fate of Vasilii Aksenov’s Cult Novel A Starry Ticket on Paper and on Screen
This chapter explores Aleksandr Zarkhi’s film adaptation of Vasilii Aksenov’s 1961 “youth novel” A Starry Ticket into My Younger Brother just a year later. Despite the relative liberalism of the Thaw period, ideological strictures had to be adhered to, and this necessitated correction of the novel’s “flaws,” namely Aksenov’s use of youth jargon, his focus on the generational divide in Soviet society, his undermining of the the myth of a big Soviet family, and the lack of positive development in the hero. The film simplifies and sanitizes the novel by removing the generational conflict and transform the novel’s ambiguous conclusion into a more optimistic vision of social progress and personal maturation.
Keywords: Aksenov, generational, liberalism, Soviet family, Thaw, youth novel, Zarkhi
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