Empirical Research on Vanbilov’s Drama Theme

Sun Daman

China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao, Shandong, 266580, China

Keywords: Vanbilov, Drama, Theme.

Abstract: Alexander Vanbilov (1937-1972), a famous Soviet dramatist, was born at Irkutsk in Siberia. He was

engaged in drama creation at the local with seven dramas in whole life—"Parting in June", "Eldest son",

"Catching wild ducks", "Other provincial anecdotes", "Last summer in Venturi Tomsk State", "House with

window facing field" and "Dating". By using distinctive methods in these works, Vanbilov detailedly

described particular trivia and emotions in ordinary people's life, which were main source of Vanbilov's

works theme. In this study, Vanbilov's drama themes were analyzed from three aspects—other provincial

anecdotes, home and family relationship and moral choice.

1 INTRODUCTION

Alexander Vanbilov (1937-1972), an famous Soviet

playwright, had written seven major dramas—

"Parting in June", "Eldest son", "Catching wild

ducks", "Other provincial anecdotes", "Last summer

in Venturi Tomsk State", "House with window

facing field" and "Dating". In these works, Vanbilov

detailedly described particular trivia and emotions in

ordinary people's life by using distinctive methods.

His main works theme can be generally assorted into

three aspects—other provincial life, home and family

relationships and moral choice. Vanbilov's drama

theme will be analyzed in detail form the three

aspects.

2 THEME OF OTHER

PROVINCIAL LIFE

Vanbilov was born at a village in Siberian, where he

spent his childhood. In his works, Vanbilov always

described most familiar characters—people living in

other provinces (i.e. not the capital). The writers

were most interested in conflicts of social

psychology and ethics of people living in particular

environment—other provinces. Scenes in his script

usually appears in local or district center. Plots

mostly occur in students' dormitory, home, cafe, tea

house and restaurant with heroes of ordinary people.

"Other provincial" in Vanbilov's works contain two

attributes—geographical meaning and emotional and

moral significance.

Vanbilov praised beautiful countryside and

nature in first drama "House with window facing

field". Primary school teacher Tretyakov intended to

return to city. Before leaving, he went to say farewell

to head of cow farm Astaffyeva. However, he was

affected with the women's humor and choir’s

cheerful singing. Then he gave up the idea of going

back to city.

Zülow in "Catching ducks" was tired of working

in institute of intelligence. The only way to get rid of

real-life for him was "catching ducks"—dropping

into embrace of nature. He was always ready to

catching ducks so as to escape from city life. It was

city's living environment that made him a person of

half-hearted worker, sycophant subordinate and

insincere husband. In the writer’s opinion, city life

was chaotic, unfair and harmful to people. Youth

Pascal in this drama also became unreasonable due

to living in city for a few years.

The ear that Vanbilov lived in was the time of

Soviet’s rapid development of science and

technology. Money and power became the chasing

target. Many people lost their moral standards, being

spiritual emptiness and life confused. At that time,

"issue of science and people" was a major problem in

Philosophy and Social Science. Writers viewed city

as a symbol of modern science and technology

development. They discussed relationship between

modern technology and people moral development

from "city - village - people". Being aware of such

problem as well, Vanbilov manifested it in his

works. He believed that city life was the main reason

causing people’s moral decay. Urban residents were

longing for broad, fresh-aired village, forest and

field. They were eager to escape bustle of urban life

206

Daman S.

Empirical Research on Vanbilovâ

Zs Drama Theme.

DOI: 10.5220/0006022302060209

In Proceedings of the Information Science and Management Engineering III (ISME 2015), pages 206-209

ISBN: 978-989-758-163-2

and find a spiritual home in other provincial nature,

becoming a free man again. Thus in Vanbilov’

drama, city, other province, suburban and village

were no longer geography concepts, but are endowed

with symbolic meaning in philosophy.

3 THEME OF HOME AND

FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS

There are two subjects in Vanbilov’s home drama—

dream of and pursuit for home and disharmony in

family, which are interweaved as well. Heroes being

homeless or far away from home are one of the

important themes in Vanbilov’s dramas. Koresov

("Parting in June ") was homeless and had to live in

dormitory or lodge in Chlotuev's villa. Boskin and

Sylva in "Eldest son" found a place for covering in

Sarafanov's home, while Vasia and Nina had to

escape from warm house. In "Last summer in

Venturi Tomsk State", the investigator Sharmanov

leaved home in big city to remote town of Venturi

Tomsk. Sisters Valentina went far away from home

to pursuit their happiness. But in the end, all the

efforts were in vain. Actually, none of Vanbilov's

heroes had a complete home.

Even Zülow in "Catching ducks" still felt

uncomfortable after he received a dreamed

residential with everything. He had a house, but

cannot feel at home. An inexplicable force drived

him to leave the comfort decent house. He could find

nowhere to pursuit peace heart except catching

ducks. It was also sublimation of his home dream to

some extent.

In order to highlight spiritual and moral pillar,

Vanbilov put image portrayal of house and fence in

the first place. The pillar and image are interrelated

and complementary. For example, Valentina often

repaired fence broken by teahouse guests. Hence,

concept of home had typical sense of moral and

philosophical.

4 THEME OF MORAL CHOICE

4.1 "Parting in June"

Moral choice theme was not fresh in literature.

Traditional stories can be divided into two types.

Hero overcomes himself and successfully gets out of

dilemma. Or, hero ruins for not suffering intense

inner struggle. Vanbilov was intended to find a new

solution. His heroes eventually obtained spiritual

rebirth at a desperate situation after experiencing a

long fall.

At first glance, conflict in "Parting in June" was

very simple, even cliche. The soon graduate college

student Koresov had to make a tough choice— being

expelled from school and losing job and favorite girl,

or giving up diploma and better future for being

along with the girl. He did not withstand the test at

the beginning. In order to obtain the diploma and

favorite work, he abandoned the girl. But in the

graduation party, he felt ashamed of his behavior and

tore up his diploma in public.

This story seems to be very naive with an indeed

cliche plot but common principle. You cannot betray

love and conscience to compromise the reality.

However, this work is not a simple love drama,

although it is formally theme of love. А. Jemitov

incisively pointed out that in this work readers

"should not overestimated heroes’ love" in

"Vanbilov anthology" (published in 1975) after he

read "Parting in June". Then, Е. Gusanskaya

compared different versions of the drama. She

concluded that "Koresov and Tania’s love did not

exist in the drama, although the drama seemingly

described love.". Indeed, the love it described was

only Tania’s love for Koresov. The hero's behavior

and whole story showed that he obviously had not

experienced the same feelings of Tania despite of

favorable impression. Thus for him, it could be

betrayal that he accepted Repnikov conditions

without hesitation. However, after explanation to

Tania, anxiety in Koresov’s heart increased

dramatically, turning into lost and desperate. Hero

finally understood that he had made an ethics

mistake. He had betrayed Tanja’s love, even himself,

just in order to obtain a diploma. In the end, he

successfully withstood temptation, tearing diploma

in front of everyone. He felt he was no longer the

past Koresov but another person.

In this drama, Vanbilov extracted natural lifelike

image from bland plots. He turned usual didactic

moral into serious social and moral conflicts

combined with conscience and moral choice.

The innovation of Vanbilov’s dealing with moral

theme was that heroes knew what to choose before

decision with realization of finding problems in life

and recognizing them. For example, Boskin in

"Eldest son" was uncertain about love, selflessness

and sympathy in human before he entered

Sarafanov’s home. He said:"People have thick skin

not easy to be torn. But only by tearing it can people

learn to trust and sympathize." In fact, Sarafanov

family trusted him immediately. They treated him as

son and eldest brother, talking all the family

problems to him and seeking his help and support.

Boskin quickly realized the cruelty of his own

reckless behavior. He was faced with a lot of

problems: How to do next? How to get out of the

dilemma he causes? Escape? Continue to play role to

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deceive others? Or confess? He engaged in a fierce

struggle in the heart. At the same time, he was also

worried about Sarafanov. He was unwilling to make

Sarafanov pain, for this man had become his relative.

With the lie slowly being lifted, Boskin found it has

no practical significance whether he cheated to

Sarafanov. Because Sarafanov was a "saint", Boskin

saw the opportunity to choice and recognized the

necessity of choice.

4.2 "Catching Ducks"

Zülow was faced with a completely different choice:

How to live? Whether it is worth to live? In fact, he

had considered the issue long before receiving

wreath. The cruel joke just became start of deep

understanding of suffering. He was looking for a

heart way to get out of dilemma and to be harmony

with world and himself.

Viewing Zülow's life carefully, we could find his

life was ordinary but with a cartoon style. Everything

here was usual but very "gloomy". Disgusting work,

boring entertainment, cliche topics and worthless

care washed life's meaning and people's personality.

It seemed like a happy, fulfilling and comfortable

world. Actually, it was artificial and unnatural unreal

world, where everything lost its true meaning and

value. People pretended to work, caring about

nothing except own happiness. The most important

things were "Do not get excited." and "Do not

destroy collectively recognized game rules, even

though they are absurd." The drama reflects absurd

and ridiculous world. For example in one plot (place

2, scene 2), Sayabin's wife was ready to betray her

husband and to date with leadership for getting

desirous residence. But her husband was not

ashamed, even proudly acclaiming her as "living

companion.". How absurd! When Zülow witnessed

all, he was shocked and could not help but say: "Yes,

you have had home."

For Zülow, betrayal was common. In his world,

as long as it was profitable, betrayal could happen

regardless of big or small, open or concealed, others

or themselves. For example, his friends had betrayed

him more than once. Sayabin, one of the hero's

colleagues, seemingly wanted to help Zülow get rid

of suicidal thoughts. But once Zülow determined to

commit suicide, he involuntarily looked at floors and

walls, planning to decorate them. It seemed that

Zülow had shot himself, and he had become owner

of residence. Until now, the hero completely

awaked: "I am still alive. What are you doing? Is it

little that you own? ... Scrooge! ". Naked betrayal

astonished Zülow. He had to recognize a lot of

things. He continued his life with inner awake

emotion, but long and complicated rebirth road just

began. Vanbilov leaved an open ending.

4.3 "Last Summer in Venturi Tomsk

State"

Rebirth of hero is much simpler in another

Vanbilov's drama—"Last summer in Venturi Tomsk

State" with Sharmanov. Moreover, his choice reflects

more distinct social significance.

At the beginning, Sharmanov showed in front of

us was indifferent to everything around, even

himself. He thought that nothing was important and

he wanted nothing. Lazy and snooze had controlled

him. Everyone knew Valentin's love for him, but he

did not take note of the feeling. Finally, it was

Valentin's confession that drove him awake. He

found himself again as part of the world. "All come

back: night, streets, forest. I'm walking in the forest

with grass, trees, scent. I firstly feel these words

fresh after birth.". All were active again in his life.

Sharmanov also found his responsibility and ability

to participate in and improve life like before.

5 CONCLUSIONS

Vanbilov has a very deep understanding of life, and

can express life in particular way. With

characteristics of life being fully presented, life in

Vanbilov’s writings is more active, impressive and

powerful. Vanbilov successfully captures essence of

modern life, and creates a unique theatrical world.

Vanbilov’s dramas are full of authenticity. Each of

his dramas will not lose reality despite of time lapse.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study was funded by Humanities and Social

Sciences Program of Colleges in Shandong Province

"Research on Vanbilov's dramas" with Grant

Number of Y121109W.

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