The Image of a Communist Construction Site in J. Wail’s Novel “The Wooden Spoon”

Abstract

The novel “The Wooden Spoon” (1937) by the Czech writer and publicist Jiří Weil (1900–1959) is introduced into Russian scientific circulation for the first time. Its main theme and setting are the construction of a copper smelter on Lake Balkhash – Balkhashstroy. Weil tries to evaluate the large-scale communist construction by human standards – to depict it through the prism of the lives of four characters, each of whom represents a certain type: a Soviet official in exile, a Czech communist intellectual, a skilled foreign worker, and a Komsomol member mobilized for the construction site. The fates of these characters give the author the opportunity to show different sides of Soviet construction – domestic, psychological, ideological and political. The writer conceptualizes the space of Balkhashstroy as a place of severe trials, where both the impersonal state machine, aimed at achieving its grandiose goals, and nature – a harsh desert, not adapted for human life – are against man. It is interesting that the author equates the will of the state, deprived of personification, with the fate of ancient Greek tragedies, and its anthropocentric position brings the novel “Wooden Spoon” closer to the works of such Soviet writers as A. Platonov, B. Pilnyak, Ju. Olesha. At the same time, the novel includes not only an existential-philosophical evaluation, but also the pathos of heroic construction, overcoming nature and one’s “I”, and in this it correlates with the Soviet industrial novel of the 1930s.

Received: 01.08.2025.
Revised: 10.09.2025.
Accepted: 16.09.2025.

Citation
Grasko A. V. The Image of a Communist Construction Site in J. Wail’s Novel “The Wooden Spoon” // Slavic Almanac. 2025. No. 3–4. P. 185–203 (in Russian). DOI: 10.31168/2073-5731.2025.3-4.09