Author's intent and editor's licence: On the publication of Vasily Aksyonov's Mysterious Passion

The focuses on the history of the publication of Vasily Aksyonov's last work - Mysterious Passion, which he referred to as a “novel about the sixties”. While fitting into the general tone of Khrushchev's “thaw” literature, Aksyonov's autobiographical prose has distinct features, which are defined as the writer's focus on emotional and psychological, rather than actual and chronological authenticity. It is demonstrated that the writer's key approach consists in strengthening the novel and weakening the biographical components of the narration, with the truth of art dominating the truth of life. In the novel, the forms of personal memory are not based on the principle of the first person autobiographical narration that presupposes the predominance of linear time. Memory “returns” beyond the text, while within the text, it is felt as “here and now”. This is the module of the writer's personal memory: Aksyonov writes about others, and through others he writes about himself. This explains the mosaic of the writer's memory, where one description complements another, thus creating a complete picture. The author analyses the differences between the first edition of the novel (2009), defined as a journal version, and the writer's version published in 2015. The former edition is about 80 pages shorter than the latter, with six chapters entirely cut out (“1963. Further March. Garsonniere”, “1963. April - May. Depression”, “1963. May. Six-armed”, “1963. June. National”, “1968. Early August, Ralissa”, “1968. August 15. Sardius”) and some chapters shortened by two or three pages. As a result, a plot line that depicts a love affair of Robert Er has been lost. It creates inconsistencies and empty spots, which are difficult for the reader to understand, and significantly distorts the writer's concept as a whole. The triad of love - friendship - poetry, which has been important for the writer since the sixties, is seriously reduced in the first edition, in particular due to the absence of the poem “If I could return to that line...” from the chapter “The Hangover”, which contains a tragic contemplation on the necessity and impossibility of remaining yourself in life, love, and art. However, the second edition (2015), though reconstructing the writer's original version, fails to adequately represent his artistic strategy. The author emphasises that excessive editorial explanatory and clarifying footnotes, aimed at elucidating the nuances of the time, in fact, convert the work from a “novel about the 1960s” to the chronicle of the 1960s. © 2018 Tomsk State University - Faculty of Philology. All Rights Reserved