The Russian novel today is in decline. Huge, majestic explorations and evaluations of life, inherited from nineteenth-century Russia and cultivated in the Soviet period by such novelists as Sholokhov, Leonov, and Fedin, are still attempted but, except for Solzhenitsyn, the best writers favor the short story, or at most the short novel (povest′). Nearly all of the large novels of the past twenty years have been stodgy, formula-ridden, and ponderous. And those who write both large novels and shorter works – such as Daniil Granin, Vladimir Tendryakov, and Vladimir Soloukhin – are more successful with the latter.

Soviet critics are inclined to attribute the recent reaction against the novel to a residual distaste for the large forms that represent the legacy of Stalinist culture. Like the wedding-cake architecture of the time, novels became spurious and showy displays of the splendid superiority of Soviet man and all his works – monuments to the wisdom, humanity, and glory of the Communist Party and its Leader. The novel under Stalin suffered from the obligation to affirm a priori truths and frozen propositions, in which scenes from “everyday life,” detailed descriptions of production and technology, and contrived depictions of the meetings of local Party organizations became a boring surrogate for genuine conflict. Prohibited from telling the truth, novelists had resorted to masses of colorless “local color” in an effort to create the illusion of truth.

But even since the death of Stalin, there have been continuing reasons for writers to eschew exhaustive investigations of the moral, social, and ideological problems that beset contemporary Soviet civilization.