Friendship and betrayal in dramaturgical and life contexts of the Stalinist era

Abstract

In historical contexts, there can be various presuppositional ideas of morality, up to the denial of common human morality. And then the question arises: how can one judge friendship and betrayal if, instead of metaphysical unanimity, we find deep communication gaps between historical epochs? Denying universal concepts, the class morality of the Stalinist era asserted that only the collective, the party, and the class could be the ultimate criterion in interpersonal relations. As an example, the article studies the story of playwright A.N. Afinogenov’s relationship with the writer Vsevolod Ivanov in 1937 such a life context is compared with the dramaturgical one. In Afinogenov’s play “Fear” a similar moral dilemma arises, in which the playwright actually acts as a man who justifies the moral necessity of betraying friendship for the sake of loyalty to collectivist morality.