historical novel

Genre defi nition of Timur Kibirov’s The General and His Family caused disagreement among literary critics. The range of opinions concerning the defi nition of the novel’s genre include historical novel, family saga, cento novel, the novel about psychology and morality of the late years of the USSR. This article is concentrated on the novel’s genre defi nition. The genre framework of the text is the epoch-standard local family story depicted against the background of massive Soviet history.

The article offers a history of the publication of translations of M. Jursenar's works into Russian since 1984 and systematizes the assessments and approaches to the work of the French writer, which have been developing in parallel in domestic criticism.