MANIFESTING SOVIET EVERYDAY LIFE BY ESTRANGEMENT

Analysis of various approaches to the study of everyday life shows the importance of literary texts as a source of not only facts from daily life of the past, but also of the views of the author's contemporaries on a variety of events. "Starik Khottabych," a tale by Soviet children's story writer L. Laguin, is discussed as an unconventional example of how changes in everyday life are reflected in the literature of the time. Similarities are also revealed between "Starik Khottabych" and the highly acclaimed satirical novels by Ilf and Petrov, "Twelve Chairs" and " The Little Golden Calf." In both cases, a protagonist disconnected from Soviet realities serves to create an estrangement effect, which highlights some problems inherent in that reality and not necessarily articulated by the contemporaries.