RUSSIAN THEME IN F. WOLF'S LIFE AND SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ESSAYS OF THE 1930S              (FOLLOWING THE TRACKS OF FORGOTTEN DATES) 

Sharypina Tatiana Aleksandrovna, Doctor of philological sciences, professor, head of sub-department of foreign literature, Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni Novgorod (37 Bolshaya Pokrovskaya street, Nizhni Novgorod, Russia), swawa@yandex.ru

821.112 

Background. The article‟s topicality is defined by the necessity to reconsider the symbolic phenomena and names of the past 20th century in the new sociocultural epoch. Address to the name and works of the dramatist and eminent writer of politi-cal essays Friedrich Wolf whose works are devoted to anti-fascist struggle is actual and hortatory in the epoch of post-modernist relativism. The aim of the work is to analyze the influence of the Russian literature and culture on the ethical and aesthetic principles and poetic manner of the author‟s socialist drama, particularly the ideas of Soviet Proletkult, Meyerhold‟s, Tairov‟s, Okhlopkov‟s theatre practice, acknowledged in Wolf‟s social and political essays. The task is to consider the ori-ginality of the writer‟s journalistic performances.
Materials and methods. Realization of the research objectives was achieved through usage of the documents retrieved from the collection of the Soviet Information Bureau Archives, the stenographical materials of the First National congress of the Soviet authors, letters and memoirs, essays of writers. The methodo-logical basis is founded on the historical and literary, comparative and typological methods in the first place, as well as on the textual analysis methodology.
Results. The article considered the author‟s aesthetic views and the interrelation with representatives of the Russian and Soviet literature (Vs. Vishnevsky, A. A. Fa-deev, M. Gorky) in the sociocultural climate of the epoch. The analogies are drawn between the monumental style of the genre «optimistic tragedy» in the Soviet dra-maturgy and Wolf‟s historical dramas as well as the types of heroes, are being de-picted in the process of character formation. It is evident in the author‟s social and political essays of1930s–40s.
Conclusions. F. Wolf‟s creative heritage, particularly his social and political essays of the thirties and forties, remains topical and gives a certain urge to develop the German dramaturgy of the new political journalistic school, the so-called Ger-man “documentary” theatre of the sixties and seventies.

F. Wolf, historical drama, expressionism, epic theatre, German socialist dramaturgy, «optimistic tragedy», traditions and innovation, interaction, “documentary” theatre. 

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