The Eccentric (Chudak)

Aleksandr Nikolayevich Afinogenov

Psychological drama (1929)

The play depicts the struggles of Boris Volgin, a non-communist worker in a paper factory. and unfolds his personal drama against a background of the mass enthusiasm in the early days of socialist industrialisation. Struggling against indifference, bureaucracy, favouritism, and anti-Semitism, the young, idealistic Volgin confronts such external difficulties as slander, betrayal, and his wife's infidelity as well as internal psychological problems, such as his inability to fight for personal causes. Courageous in implementing socialist goals, he is too soft-hearted, too proud, and not sufficiently self-centred to stand up for his rights. A romantic in love, he loses his wife to a cunning friend; an honest worker, he is framed, unjustly accused, and dismissed. Eventually he proves his innocence and is reinstated. Although his accusers are not really punished, Volgin is triumphant because he continues to carry a dream in his heart.