Iurii Trifonov is known primarily as a writer of Soviet urban life. This study, however, takes as its starting-point Trifonov"s interest in history and the passage of time, and attempts to show how this interest informs all his writing, from his earliest, Stalin Prize-winning period to the self-consciously modernist later works. The theme of time is expressed in several ways in the course of Trifonov"s creative evolution. In his early works he merely reflects the abiding ethos of his age, that of Stalinism and then the thaw. In his works of the 1960s and 1970s he integrates a sense of history into his exploration of the cynicism and opportunism characteristic of the Brezhnev period. Trifonov"s use of flashback, memory and multiple narrative viewpoints is crucial here, as is his interest in decisive events of Russian history, such as the assassination of Tsar Aleksandr II, and the Russian Civil War. In his later works, Trifonov emphasizes the interconnectedness of human life and...