Between Architecture, Literature, and Power:
Yuri Trifonov’s The House on the Embankment
Paper | Mirgorod, Vol. 23/24 (2025) | pp. 33–63
Anna BORS
Abstract: This article explores the connections between the literary text The House on the Embankment (1976) by Yuri Trifonov (1925–1981) and the architectural space of the Government Building (1929–1931), designed by Boris Iofan. The proposed analysis is interdisciplinary and intertextual in nature. Particular attention is paid to the relationship
between architecture and totalitarian power as a factor shaping the characters’ identities and moral choices. The building, serving as the author’s locum memoriae, brings forth autobiographical themes and the individual’s entanglement with the value system of Soviet culture.
Keywords: Trifonov / The House of the Government / The House on the Embankment / space / binary oppositions / panopticism
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32017/mirgorod-2025-23.24-2
Cite this paper: Bors, A. (2025). Między architekturą, literaturą a władzą. Dom nad rzeką Moskwą Jurija Trifonowa. Mirgorod: The Annual of the History and Epistemology of Contemporary Literary Studies, 23/24, pp. 33–63. DOI: https://doi.org/10.32017/mirgorod-2025-23.24-2
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