Early Traditionalism and Socialist Realism: The Problem of Artistic Interaction in Leonid Leonov's The Russian Forest

The works of Leonid Leonov cover the greater part of the twentieth century. They increasingly attract the attention of modern researchers, with “borderline” works, whose style is not absolutely obvious, being of particular interest. For instance, the novel The Russian Forest (1953) became the writer's literary response to the discussion about the forest developed in the USSR in the 1920s-1950s. Disputes about the connection of The Russian Forest with this or that literary direction, about the ideological position of its author continue to the present. This article aims to analyze the interaction of the literary trends of socialist realism and traditionalism in The Russian Forest, and to comprehend the nature of their literary embodiment. The sign of the socialist realistic method in the novel is the type of the main conflict; the sign of the traditionalist writing is the pathos of the work (the idea of national identity). To achieve the aim, the following objectives were set: (1) to investigate the grounds for identifying The Russian Forest as socialist realism; (2) to justify attributing Leonid Leonov to traditionalist writers; (3) to identify the features of natural philosophical prose in The Russian Forest; (4) to show the interaction of socialist realistic and traditionalist elements in the work. The material of the study was Leonov's novel The Russian Forest, awarded with the Lenin Prize in 1957. The work raises problems significant for the middle of the 20th century: struggle against fascism, development of the economy, preservation of the country's natural wealth. Except for the first point, these issues remain relevant in modern Russia. The methodological basis of the study was works devoted to the analysis of the poetics of socialist realism (L. Geller, H. Gunther, M.A. Litovskaya) and traditionalism (N.V. Kovtun, A.I. Smirnova). Works by L.P. Yakimova, Т.М. Vakhitova, N.A. Nepomnyashchikh were also significant for understanding Leonov's ideological position. Methods of research are structural typological, motif analysis. In the course of the study, the signs of socialist realism were identified in Leonov's novel. First of all, it is the type of the main conflict and the genre specificity (The Russian Forest is an upbringing novel that forms national identity and partisanship in the readers). Some works mention the gloss of Leonov's text. Among the characteristic features of a traditionalist writing is the pathos of the work (the idea of national identity), the appeal to national cultural myths. The main attention is paid to the myth of the “Russian forest”, the keeper of which is the main character of the novel, the scientist Vikhrov. The image of the forest expert Vikhrov is revealed through the use of such typical traditionalist motifs as the motifs of initiation, the way to the shrine, asceticism, the struggle to preserve the national heritage. As a result of the study, it should be recognized that the presence of traditionalist motifs in Leonov's novel does not exclude the socialist realistic method of narration, and, on the contrary, the presence of individual elements of socialist realism does not completely determine the style of the text: the multifacetedness of the literary design allows to combine different stylistic and even ideological principles in one work.