Soviet detectives: stages of development of the genre

The concept of "Soviet detectives" is not entirely unambiguous. On the one hand, this phrase is applicable to all detectives written by Soviet authors in the period from the 20s to the 80s of the last century. On the other hand, the so-called old and beloved Soviet films about the valiant police are called so. In this article we will talk about books.

Soviet detectives: features of the genre

On the Soviet literature is written just to offend a little. From various publications, one gets the impression that in a certain period of the life of our country only "right" works were published, which tell of the party, the fate of the simple working class, and the revolution. In fact, Soviet authors have written quite a lot and in completely different genres, although in their books one can clearly see traces of the influence of the then existing system.

Soviet detectives were born around the 1920s, and the impetus for their emergence was a sharp increase in crime during the NEP. It was during this period that books were written about Mishka Yaponchik, Vaska Svist and Sonka-gorodushushnitsu.

Why do we know so little about the detective stories of that time? The thing is that during the Soviet era, the detective was considered an exclusively foreign genre, and pernicious and corrupting. Maxim Gorky was particularly indignant about this, who considered such works "a heap of horrors, dangers, murders, sexual perversions." By the way, almost a similar description was given in TSB (second edition). That's why Soviet detectives for a long time hid under the guise of adventure literature. No author wanted to admit that he was actually writing detective stories, as the genre itself was in disgrace.

The second stage in the development of the Soviet detective can be considered a decade before the Great Patriotic War and the time of military operations. During this period, various spy stories, the struggle against the class enemy within the country, and, of course, all kinds of war crimes began to serve as a basis for him.

The third stage began in 1956. At this time, finally there were classic Soviet detectives: with crimes, investigations, evidence and other attributes of the genre. In the next few years, the genre clearly identified several areas in which the authors worked - this is a classic detective, a police novel, a fantasy-detective novel, a spy novel, a political action-packed novel and military adventure. The best Soviet detectives were created by such masters as Arkady and Georgy Vainer, Andris Kolbergs, Danil Koretsky, Victor Pronin and many others.

However, despite the diversity, works in the genre had one common feature: a sparing attitude towards the reader. Although the books contained both crimes and fights, and murders, but there was not that open frankness, like, for example, Dick Chase.

Soviet detectives: a list of the best books

Here are the best books (in the author's opinion) from the "Soviet Detective" series.

1. "The era of mercy." Arkady and George Weiner.

2. "Mitigating circumstances". Danil Koretsky.

3. "Proceed to liquidation." Edward Khrutsky.

4. Anonymous customer. Sergey Vysotsky.

5. Widow in January. Andris Kolbergs.