Brothers Stepan and Ivan Kondurushkin

The article highlights the hitherto understudied connection between the biography and literary activity of law enforcement officer of Soviet Russia Ivan Kondurushkin and the work of his brother, writer Stepan Kondurushkin. The research partially reconstructs Ivan’s writing fate, which began with the mediation of his brother back in pre-revolutionary times in collaboration with the children’s magazine “Tropinka.” The article raises the question about the relationship between the literary heritage of the Kondurushkin brothers and the fact of inclusion of Stepan’s works in Ivan’s collection of stories “In the Snowy Mountains” (1930). The literary fate of the story “Gandeikin’s Life” (1909), republished in 1930 under the title “Vanka the Prisoner,” is examined in detail. Analysis of the work by Ivan reveals that the facts of the biography of the writer’s brother, Stepan Kondurushkin, formed the basis of the story of the main character. The article provides a comparative analysis of two editions of the story by Ivan, reveals elements of autobiography in the story “Vanka Prison,” and emphasizes the author’s changes in social aspects according to the new socio-political situation in Russia. The conclusion emphasizes that the presence of brother’s texts in Ivan’s literary work creates difficulties in determining the author of a particular story, which allows us to formulate as a scientific problem the question of determining the authorship of some texts of the Kondurushkin brothers.