generation of informers and repressors. By contrast, Treugolnikov represents the young generation of romantic writers who believe that the Soviet Union can be cleansed of the lingering contagion of Stalin’s crimes.

Your Murderer

In Your Murderer, Aksyonov sharpens his satirical wit and takes on alcoholism, which was one of the major social problems of the Soviet Union and has remained a problem in Russia. However, by locating his play on an imaginary tropical island instead of somewhere in the Soviet Union, Aksyonov gives it a universality of theme, acknowledging that the problems of which he speaks are not specific to any one culture.

Your Murderer is the story of Alexandro, a writer who stubbornly resists the Masculinus alcohol conglomerate’s attempts to take over the island’s society by bullying everyone into drinking their product. However, his principled fight results only in his progressive isolation from everyone around him, and in despair, he flings himself under the wheels of a fancy car driven by his former friends. When he survives, he interprets this as a sign that he should join the forces of Masculinus and creates an advertising campaign around a tough-talking folk hero he calls Pork Sausage. However, his success is short lived, for he is soon horrified by the violence that his character is provoking and resolves to destroy his creation.

That proves more easily said than done, and the monster keeps coming back in a multitude of disguises. Finally it is Alexandro himself who is killed, in a bizarre and farcical electrocution scene. His body is tossed over the stage’s proscenium and his girlfriend Maria asks if he is dead. He answers that it depends entirely on the characters of the novel he was writing—if they have survived, he will survive as well. In the brief epilogue, the island has become an alternative paradise to which Alexandro and his friends flee to escape the besotted dominance of Masculinus. However, when they shake the beautiful Tree of Freedom to gain its bounty, the hideous head of Pork Sausage falls out and mocks them.

Although on its most obvious level Your Murderer is a criticism of the rampant alcoholism in Soviet society and the Soviet government’s financial interest in selling liquor to the populace, it also works on several other levels. Alexandro’s struggle with Masculinus Corporation can be seen as the struggles of the artist to maintain integrity in the face of Soviet censorship and the pressures of Socialist Realist doctrine that art must support the purposes of the state. Aksyonov makes personal barbs against individual Soviet leaders of the time through Masculinus Stockholder, whose consistent mispronunciation of certain words was intended to hint at Khrushchev’s similar speech habits and whose chatter about sending the “national cavalry” against the United States military was a sly jab at the appallingly incompetent Marshal Klimenty Voroshilov, who sent Soviet cavalry against Nazi tanks. Even the principal antagonist, Pork Sausage, is a reference to the common perception that Khrushchev resembled a pig.

The Four Temperaments

Drawing on the ancient Greek tradition of four basic temperaments, Aksyonov creates another meditation on the nature of tyranny and freedom in The Four Temperaments. The four allegorical characters, Chol Erik, Sng Vinik, Phleg Matik, and Melan Cholik, begin the story with a suicide attempt, from which they are rescued by the mysterious Razrailov. He then persuades them to climb a tall tower, away from Earth’s influence, to participate in an experiment in linking human beings to a computer, the Cyber.

As the four protagonists begin to shake off their passivity, they are approached by an old soldier, the Eagle, who tells them that he fights the Steel Bird (a symbolic figure that represents Stalinism in a number of Aksyonov’s works). He also tells them that Razrailov has lied to them and that they have in fact died and the tower is part of the land of the dead. Subsequently another subject, Nina, arrives after being murdered by a jealous husband. She causes all four of the protagonists and the Cyber to fall in love with her, and that love humanizes the Cyber. Razrailov then crushes their rebellion by strangling Nina.

The last scene shows the characters in a café, waiting for someone. Razrailov and Nina arrive and battle for control. In the end, Razrailov drags Nina away, but the other characters settle back in to wait, certain she will return. Nina can be interpreted as the Muse, the source of artistic inspiration who has been squelched by the Soviet government but can never be truly eliminated.

Aristofaniana s lygushkami

In this play, which draws heavily on the works of the playwright Aristophanes, ancient Greece stands for the modern Soviet Union. In Hades, the dead of various professions are gathered in “living rooms,” including the one shared by poets Alexander Pushkin, William Shakespeare , and various moderns, even a far-future poet known only as Boo. In the world above, Athens is ruled by the dictator Alcibiades, who has driven out true poets and replaced them with graphomaniacs, hacks who churn out praises for the tyrant. The god Dionysus, aided by Aristophanes, descends into Hades to take Aeschylus to the upper world and confront Alcibiades. However, they are instead attacked by the hacks, until they are rescued by a chorus of frogs, representing true poetry. In the final scene, back in Hades, Dionysus and his poets are greeted with cheers by the other poets.