Bolshevik Discursive Practices: The Emergence of the Genre of Communist Biography (Based on the Materials of the Ural Periodicals Published During the Russian Civil War)

Abstract

After the Bolsheviks took power, they were faced with one of the most important tasks: a communist project to create a New Man. One of the methods used for this purpose was the creation of biographical and autobiographical texts. This article describes the process by which the genre of communist biography emerged in the initial period of the Russian Civil War. The author compares this genre with the hagiographic literature, noting their similar structure. The study is based on Ural periodicals published during the Civil War. It demonstrates that, like hagiographical literature, communist biography depicts not an actual person, but an idealized image: a revolutionary striving for the communism as the higher truth.