SOURCE: “Jurij Kazakov: The Pleasures of Isolation,” in The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. X, 1966, pp. 22-31.

In the following essay, Kramer analyzes the major thematic concern of Kazakov's short fiction—the theme of isolation.

No recent Soviet writer has so concentrated his creative energies on one central theme as Jurij Kazakov has; there is hardly a story of his which does not depict a character who has isolated himself from the normal flow of life about him, from ordinary social intercourse. In considering Kazakov's stature as a writer, the question one must resolve is whether his stories represent a form of artistic escape or whether the body of his creative output represents a significant treatment of a major human problem. Do his characters strive for isolation because it is the sine qua non for certain positive values ordinarily unworthy of serious consideration in Soviet literature, or...