Comparative analysis of the Christian theme in Soviet literature

During the 70 years of the Soviet regime the officially approved Soviet literature consistently reflected an exclusively materialistic world view. As a result, there were very few critical works, published in the West, dealing with the Christian theme in Russian literature of the Soviet period.Surprisingly, literature with the Christian theme did exist in the years of militant state atheism. Such literary works raised questions about the purpose of life, about truth, moral courage and the person of Christ. These books were published during the 60-s, the time of the "thaw", and became a focal point of public discussions. Two of them--Bulgakov's "Master i Margarita" and Pasternak's "Doktor Zhivago" were internationally acknowledged as major literary works.This study will examine in detail and compare five literary works with christian content, published in the Soviet years of Russia. Two of them were mentioned above. The other three are "Plakha" by Aytmatov, "Dzhvari" by Alfeeva and "Fakul'tet nenizhnikh veshchei" by Dombrovsky.The existence of such literature proves that all the efforts to suppress the human spirit and its longing for the Absolute have failed