I recently finished Before Brezhnev Died by Iulian Ciocan. It was published by Dalkey Archive and is included in their Moldovan Literature Series. Upon completing it I was reflecting on the fact that in the past year I have read a significant amount of work produced by writers from Post-Soviet countries who lived through the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Those writers include
And now Ciocan from Moldova. I want to spend some time reflecting on the similarities in these texts. Ciocan has a fourth wall breaking chapter towards the end of Before Brezhnev Died. Titled 'The Elucidation' in which he reflects on the fact that their isn't a singular "Soviet Everyday". The experiences of Russians differs from Khazaks differs from Moldovans differs from Tungus and so on, but there are still interesting commonalities between these authors. Ciocan and Cartarescu are both preoccupied with their childhoods, and both look back thorugh lkayers of estrangment. But where Ciocan chooses to focus on the absurd, finding humor in the tragedy of the unforgiving landscape of halteringly urbanizing Moldova, Cartarescu delves into the unreal, exploring childhood memories and impressions and suffusing them with surrealistic digressions.