DILEME ALE DISPERĂRII ÎN ROMANUL TRENUL SPRE SAMARKAND, DE GUZEL IAHINA
DILEMMAS OF DESPAIR IN THE NOVEL THE TRAIN TO SAMARKAND, BY GUZEL IAHINA

Summary/Abstract: The vast Soviet lands, shattered by the Civil War and the unbearable consequences of requisitions, are overwhelmed by the famine triggered in the third decade of the last century. The mission received by the young man Deev to take by a sanitary improvised train five hundred children from a haunted by famine orphanage in Kazanul Popolgiei, to Samarkand seems a utopia. This journey through time and space, sustained by facts and historical documents, has a family connection with the author of the novel: her paternal grandfather was in an orphanage and belonged to a group of children transported towards Turkestan on such a train of hope. The polyphony of the voices and feelings of some generations marked by famine is rendered in literature, thus trying to avoid wrapping in silence histories of injustice. The prismatic narrative structure of the novel combines the unilateral perspectives of the characters in a sequence of interior monologues, confessions and authentic complementary selfanalyses. The prevailing feeling of permaomunismului nent danger through the entire journey is sometimes faded away by unexpected moments of tenderness, other times by unconfessed love, by unexpected gestures of solidarity, sometimes culminating with unimaginable efforts and personal sacrifices. The orphan children’s traumas, abandoned by their parents or not understood are amplified by absolute evil unexpectedly appearing under different forms: famine, plague, treason, crime. The struggle for survival turns into a struggle for salvation of souls, thus alternating the moments of darkness with the moments of light. The novel can be considered an endless echo of questions and answers for all those who have been overwhelmed by famine despair.

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