советской

Vitaly Ozerov's new book has a clearly defined addressee - the mass reader, and an even more specific task - to show how Soviet writers depicted in their works the main stages of the half-century development of Soviet society. As a rule, the critic's attention is focused on novels, and by Russian Soviet authors; representatives of other nationalities are present more as "decor", from the posts only V. Mayakovsky, S. Yesenin, N. Dementiev, A. Surkov, P. Antokolsky, M. Aliger, A. Kuleshov, A. Akhmatova and others are mentioned with individual works. Through chronologically arranged essays, V. Ozerov achieves his goal: by analyzing individual works, he at the same time strives to reveal their place and significance in both literary and social life. Of course, as the critic emphasizes, in a small book it is hardly possible to cover the huge, multinational process in the history of Soviet literature. Here, it is necessary to bring individual authors and works to the forefront in order to highlight even more clearly what is an undoubted contribution.