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Pil’njak e le spie: Letteratura come intrigo e travestimento
Pil’niak and the Spies: On Understanding Literature as Intrigue and Disguise
Colombo, Duccio
2024
Abstract
The story of Roman Kim, the author of the Glosses to Boris Pilnyak’s Japanese travel book, can help shed new light on the end of Pilnyak, who was arrested as a Japanese spy. Kim was arrested as well, but he managed to survive by inventing incredible stories about himself. He was a real spy – an OGPU agent working on the Japanese embassy in Moscow – and knew the organization’s operational logics. After his release, he built himself a career as a spy-thriller writer. Kim’s case, where reality and fiction constantly trade places with paradoxical effects, can help shed new light on the peculiarities of the Soviet literary system and on the reasons why Pilnyak could not find a place in that system.
La storia della fine di Boris Pil’njak, arrestato come spia giapponese, può essere riletta alla luce di quella dell’autore delle Glosse al suo libro di viaggio, Roman Kim. Arrestato anche lui come spia giapponese, questi riuscì a sopravvivere inventando storie incredibili sulla sua vita. Kim era davvero una spia, un agente dell’OGPU che si occupava dell’ambasciata giapponese a Mosca, e conosceva le logiche seguite dall’organizzazione. Una volta rilasciato, si sarebbe costruito una robusta carriera di scrittore di spy-thrillers. Il caso di Kim, dove realtà e finzione si scambiano continuamente di posto con effetti paradossali, offre l’occasione per uno sguardo diverso sulle peculiarità del funzionamento del sistema letterario sovietico, e per una nuova comprensione delle ragioni di incompatibilità tra Pil’njak e quel sistema.
The story of Roman Kim, the author of the Glosses to Boris Pilnyak’s Japanese travel book, can help shed new light on the end of Pilnyak, who was arrested as a Japanese spy. Kim was arrested as well, but he managed to survive by inventing incredible stories about himself. He was a real spy – an OGPU agent working on the Japanese embassy in Moscow – and knew the organization’s operational logics. After his release, he built himself a career as a spy-thriller writer. Kim’s case, where reality and fiction constantly trade places with paradoxical effects, can help shed new light on the peculiarities of the Soviet literary system and on the reasons why Pilnyak could not find a place in that system.
Journal
Source
Duccio Colombo, "Pil’njak e le spie: Letteratura come intrigo e travestimento" in: "Slavica Tergestina 32 (2024/I)", EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste, Trieste, 2024, pp. 128-151
Languages
it
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International