Entre a autoimagem e o retrato: Trotski na autobiografia e no romance

Abstract

This dissertation is a contrastive and comparative exploration of two narratives. The first is the autobiography of Leon Trostski (1879-1940), entitled Minha Vida (2017). And the second is Patrick Deville's biofiction, Viva! (2016). The element used for confrontation is the portrait that each author makes of Trotsky, in the case of Minha Vida, the self-portrait. Specifically, we will deal with the period from birth to 1917, represented in Trotsky's own version in his autobiography, and the short period of the last three years of his life, represented in Patrick Deville's volume. Trotsky's self-representation seems to center on the image of the intellectual, added to the greatness of his historical heritage as a revolutionary, which brings him closer to classic autobiographies. Patrick Deville's volume, in turn, focuses on the image of the intellectual, added to Trotsky's tragic destiny as a revolutionary, dealing with this contemporary issue regarding the outcome of the great revolutionaries and writers who are related to the historical-political themes of the first half of the 20th century. In the autobiographical version, the character's self-portrait is exposed mainly in terms of his relationships with history and politics; in biofiction, the character's portrait is shown through reports that use more sophisticated fictional content. Which makes the two works move in different directions. However, we find a relevant common aspect: despite the differences between these two conceptions of Trotsky's image, the mark of the character's historical performance appears in both works with the same notion of pact with truth.