Ретроспекции и метаретроспекции в Адъютанте генерала Май-Маевского Павла Макарова .......... 187

RETROSPECTION AND METARETROSPECTION IN PAVEL MAKAROV’S THE ADJUTANT OF GENERAL MAI-MAEVSKY

In the context of Anna Skotnicka-Maj’s monograph, Rosyjska proza wspomnieniowa lat 1953–1978 (1991), one of the forgotten artifacts of memoir prose from 1927 — Pavel Makarov’s Adjutant of General Mai-Maevsky — is analyzed. The issue of the author’s identity and loyalty is directly linked to the trickster behavior of his protagonist and narrator, who attempts to conceal the autobiographical and documentary layers with the help of a literary layer. The situation of transitions from one political camp to another during the Civil War of 1918–1920 is carefully examined. Particular attention is given to the concepts of retrospection, understood as the author’s attempt to retroactively distort the truth and deceive the reader, and meta-retrospection — a retrospective reading of the reader’s perceptions, forced to inscribe into the text that which is not there. The story of plagiarism and the television film His Excellency’s Adjutant (1969) are mentioned as an important milestone in the rethinking of the original text and the creation of the myth of the Chekist intelligence officer.