SOURCE: Shcheglov, Yuri K. “Some Themes and Archetypes in Babel's Red Cavalry.” Slavic Review 53, no. 3 (fall 1994): 653-70.

In the following essay, Shcheglov examines the plot, symbolism, and major themes of “My First Goose,” focusing on the “archetypal patterns,” the “literary motifs of ancient, ritualistic, and mythological origin which serve as a kind of concealed amplifier enhancing the paradigmatic effect of the story's events.”

It is an established fact that the so-called “Southern” (mainly Odessa-based) school of writers enriched Soviet literature of the 1920s with a number of “European” dimensions neglected by the then dominant Russian realist tradition, such as (to name but a few) intertextuality, a focus on language and style, and a sharpened sensitivity to plot and composition. It can be said that in Babel' criticism some of these aspects are just beginning to receive the full measure of attention that they merit. However, the rich fabric...