Katharine Hodgson
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197262894
- eISBN:
- 9780191734977
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197262894.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This chapter presents some concluding thoughts. Part of the purpose of this study has been to recover a sense of the range and scope of the work of just one of the writers generally thought to be ...
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This chapter presents some concluding thoughts. Part of the purpose of this study has been to recover a sense of the range and scope of the work of just one of the writers generally thought to be part of the world of official Soviet literature. Berggol′ts is known first of all for her wartime poetry; that work deserves to be placed firmly in the context of her writing before and after the war. Its importance should not be denied, but it should not be seen as a sudden, unprecedented outburst of creativity. In its exploration of Berggol′ts's writing, this study has shown that life and art became tightly entangled in her poetry and prose; the poet's own conviction that the two should be intimately connected is demonstrated by her texts. Yet it would be wrong to lose sight of the fact that we have been dealing with literary texts which must be viewed in relation to other literary texts. While much of what Berggol′ts wrote displays its connection with events in her life and in the life of her society, her writing also reveals its awareness of how others wrote. Russian literary tradition and the poetry of her contemporaries helped to form Berggol′ts's work.Less
This chapter presents some concluding thoughts. Part of the purpose of this study has been to recover a sense of the range and scope of the work of just one of the writers generally thought to be part of the world of official Soviet literature. Berggol′ts is known first of all for her wartime poetry; that work deserves to be placed firmly in the context of her writing before and after the war. Its importance should not be denied, but it should not be seen as a sudden, unprecedented outburst of creativity. In its exploration of Berggol′ts's writing, this study has shown that life and art became tightly entangled in her poetry and prose; the poet's own conviction that the two should be intimately connected is demonstrated by her texts. Yet it would be wrong to lose sight of the fact that we have been dealing with literary texts which must be viewed in relation to other literary texts. While much of what Berggol′ts wrote displays its connection with events in her life and in the life of her society, her writing also reveals its awareness of how others wrote. Russian literary tradition and the poetry of her contemporaries helped to form Berggol′ts's work.
David Shepherd
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198156666
- eISBN:
- 9780191673221
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198156666.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, Criticism/Theory
This introduction chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about metafiction and self-consciousness in Soviet literature. Metafiction is a term used to refer to fictional writing which ...
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This introduction chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about metafiction and self-consciousness in Soviet literature. Metafiction is a term used to refer to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artefact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality. This book examines the metafictional works of several Soviet authors including Leonid Leonov, Marietta Shaginyan, Konstantin Vaginov, and Veniamin Kaverin.Less
This introduction chapter explains the coverage of this book, which is about metafiction and self-consciousness in Soviet literature. Metafiction is a term used to refer to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artefact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality. This book examines the metafictional works of several Soviet authors including Leonid Leonov, Marietta Shaginyan, Konstantin Vaginov, and Veniamin Kaverin.
David Shepherd
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198156666
- eISBN:
- 9780191673221
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198156666.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, Criticism/Theory
Although metafiction has been the subject of much critical and theoretical writing, this is the first full-length study of its place in Soviet literature. Focusing on metafictional works by Leonid ...
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Although metafiction has been the subject of much critical and theoretical writing, this is the first full-length study of its place in Soviet literature. Focusing on metafictional works by Leonid Leonov, Marietta Shaginyan, Konstantin Vaginov, and Veniamin Kaverin, it examines, within a broadly Bakhtinian theoretical framework, the relationship between their self-consciousness and their cultural and political context. The texts are shown to challenge notions about the nature and function of literature fundamental to both Soviet and Anglo-American criticism. In particular, although metafictional strategies may seem designed to confirm assumptions about the aesthetic autonomy of the literary text, their effect is to reveal the shortcomings of such assumptions. The texts discussed take us beyond conventional understandings of metafiction by highlighting the need for a theoretically informed account of the history and reception of Soviet literature in which the inescapability of politics and ideology is no longer acknowledged grudgingly, but is instead celebrated.Less
Although metafiction has been the subject of much critical and theoretical writing, this is the first full-length study of its place in Soviet literature. Focusing on metafictional works by Leonid Leonov, Marietta Shaginyan, Konstantin Vaginov, and Veniamin Kaverin, it examines, within a broadly Bakhtinian theoretical framework, the relationship between their self-consciousness and their cultural and political context. The texts are shown to challenge notions about the nature and function of literature fundamental to both Soviet and Anglo-American criticism. In particular, although metafictional strategies may seem designed to confirm assumptions about the aesthetic autonomy of the literary text, their effect is to reveal the shortcomings of such assumptions. The texts discussed take us beyond conventional understandings of metafiction by highlighting the need for a theoretically informed account of the history and reception of Soviet literature in which the inescapability of politics and ideology is no longer acknowledged grudgingly, but is instead celebrated.
David Shepherd
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198156666
- eISBN:
- 9780191673221
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198156666.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter examines the metafictional works of Soviet author Leonid Leonov. The River Sot, Leonov's third novel, was one of the earliest Soviet works in the theme of industrialization and it was ...
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This chapter examines the metafictional works of Soviet author Leonid Leonov. The River Sot, Leonov's third novel, was one of the earliest Soviet works in the theme of industrialization and it was based on the author's first-hand experience of Soviet construction projects. This novel, together with Leonov's other work The Thief, provided the direction that Soviet literature should take. These novels were both influenced by the October Revolution.Less
This chapter examines the metafictional works of Soviet author Leonid Leonov. The River Sot, Leonov's third novel, was one of the earliest Soviet works in the theme of industrialization and it was based on the author's first-hand experience of Soviet construction projects. This novel, together with Leonov's other work The Thief, provided the direction that Soviet literature should take. These novels were both influenced by the October Revolution.
David Shepherd
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198156666
- eISBN:
- 9780191673221
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198156666.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter sums up the key findings of this study on Soviet metafiction. It suggests that Soviet metafiction compel readers to recognize that contexts are no less important than texts and discusses ...
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This chapter sums up the key findings of this study on Soviet metafiction. It suggests that Soviet metafiction compel readers to recognize that contexts are no less important than texts and discusses the case of socially situated readers. It shows how far beyond established notions of metafiction self-conscious Soviet writing takes its readers. It concludes that it is important for readers to be concerned about the factors commonly held to be extraneous or even inimical to the proper functions of literature.Less
This chapter sums up the key findings of this study on Soviet metafiction. It suggests that Soviet metafiction compel readers to recognize that contexts are no less important than texts and discusses the case of socially situated readers. It shows how far beyond established notions of metafiction self-conscious Soviet writing takes its readers. It concludes that it is important for readers to be concerned about the factors commonly held to be extraneous or even inimical to the proper functions of literature.
David Shepherd
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198156666
- eISBN:
- 9780191673221
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198156666.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter examines the metafictions of Soviet writer Konstantin Vaginov. The position of Vaginov in relation to the dominant literary trends in the 1920s is as marginal as Leonid Leonov's or ...
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This chapter examines the metafictions of Soviet writer Konstantin Vaginov. The position of Vaginov in relation to the dominant literary trends in the 1920s is as marginal as Leonid Leonov's or Marietta Shaginyan's seems central. His major works include The Goat's Song, Experiments in Connecting Words by Means of Rhythm, and The Works and Days of Svistonov. His third novel placed emphasis of authorly autonomy and its relation to cultural traditional and continuity and its metafictional strategies provided a particularly defamiliarizing angle of vision on these matters.Less
This chapter examines the metafictions of Soviet writer Konstantin Vaginov. The position of Vaginov in relation to the dominant literary trends in the 1920s is as marginal as Leonid Leonov's or Marietta Shaginyan's seems central. His major works include The Goat's Song, Experiments in Connecting Words by Means of Rhythm, and The Works and Days of Svistonov. His third novel placed emphasis of authorly autonomy and its relation to cultural traditional and continuity and its metafictional strategies provided a particularly defamiliarizing angle of vision on these matters.
Tatiana Gabroussenko
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824833961
- eISBN:
- 9780824870003
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824833961.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter examines the Soviet intellectual influence on North Korean literature in the nascent years of North Korean Communism. It begins with a discussion of Soviet literature in Korea in the ...
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This chapter examines the Soviet intellectual influence on North Korean literature in the nascent years of North Korean Communism. It begins with a discussion of Soviet literature in Korea in the late 1940s and early 1950s and goes on to consider the major conventions of Soviet socialist realism developed by the “soldiers on the cultural front” during the Soviet era. It then explores pro-Soviet works of literature produced by North Korean writers in various genres as form of accolades to Soviet–Korean friendship and eulogies to the Soviet liberators and the Soviet way of life. The chapter focuses on two important channels of Soviet influence: Soviet fiction and Ssoryŏn kihaenggi, travelogues written by North Korean intellectuals who visited the Soviet Union in 1946–1955 as members of specially arranged official delegations.Less
This chapter examines the Soviet intellectual influence on North Korean literature in the nascent years of North Korean Communism. It begins with a discussion of Soviet literature in Korea in the late 1940s and early 1950s and goes on to consider the major conventions of Soviet socialist realism developed by the “soldiers on the cultural front” during the Soviet era. It then explores pro-Soviet works of literature produced by North Korean writers in various genres as form of accolades to Soviet–Korean friendship and eulogies to the Soviet liberators and the Soviet way of life. The chapter focuses on two important channels of Soviet influence: Soviet fiction and Ssoryŏn kihaenggi, travelogues written by North Korean intellectuals who visited the Soviet Union in 1946–1955 as members of specially arranged official delegations.
Polly Jones
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780300185126
- eISBN:
- 9780300187212
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300185126.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Political History
This chapter examines how the increasingly stricter limits in late 1956 and 1957 were negotiated and contested within two of the main professions shaping public memory: Soviet literature and party ...
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This chapter examines how the increasingly stricter limits in late 1956 and 1957 were negotiated and contested within two of the main professions shaping public memory: Soviet literature and party history. The chapter travels backward and forward from this turning point in the thaw of 1956, exploring the internal debates within these two institutions and the professions that they represented, along with their interactions with the party leadership. It traces the emergence of these agendas and “errors” back to the Secret Speech, and reveals their persistence up to, and even beyond, December's shift in the party line on the cult of personality. It also examines the complex processes of regulating and punishing these agendas after the closed letter.Less
This chapter examines how the increasingly stricter limits in late 1956 and 1957 were negotiated and contested within two of the main professions shaping public memory: Soviet literature and party history. The chapter travels backward and forward from this turning point in the thaw of 1956, exploring the internal debates within these two institutions and the professions that they represented, along with their interactions with the party leadership. It traces the emergence of these agendas and “errors” back to the Secret Speech, and reveals their persistence up to, and even beyond, December's shift in the party line on the cult of personality. It also examines the complex processes of regulating and punishing these agendas after the closed letter.
David Shepherd
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198156666
- eISBN:
- 9780191673221
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198156666.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter examines the metafictional works of Soviet author Veniamin Kaverin. Kaverin was prominent in protesting publicly against the time-serving conformism or forced capitulation often ...
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This chapter examines the metafictional works of Soviet author Veniamin Kaverin. Kaverin was prominent in protesting publicly against the time-serving conformism or forced capitulation often detectable in military career patterns and in defending a writerly autonomy understood as freedom to pursue the writer's traditional role as independent moral guide and arbiter. This chapter analyses the metafictional style of his The Trouble Maker, Artist Unkown, and The Two Captains.Less
This chapter examines the metafictional works of Soviet author Veniamin Kaverin. Kaverin was prominent in protesting publicly against the time-serving conformism or forced capitulation often detectable in military career patterns and in defending a writerly autonomy understood as freedom to pursue the writer's traditional role as independent moral guide and arbiter. This chapter analyses the metafictional style of his The Trouble Maker, Artist Unkown, and The Two Captains.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804770071
- eISBN:
- 9780804777254
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804770071.003.0005
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
In 1926, Meir Wiener immigrated to the Soviet Union for economic and ideological reasons. While in Kiev, he worked as a research fellow at the Department for Jewish Proletarian Culture of the ...
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In 1926, Meir Wiener immigrated to the Soviet Union for economic and ideological reasons. While in Kiev, he worked as a research fellow at the Department for Jewish Proletarian Culture of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in April 1927. Wiener then transferred to the Kiev Institute for Jewish Proletarian Culture, where he was appointed as the head of the Section of Ethnography and Folklore, and published in Di royte velt a long essay reviewing two collections of poetry by the American Yiddish author H. Leyvick (Leyvik Halpern, 1888–1962). In 1929 a series of high-profile ideological campaigns were waged, first against prominent Russian writers such as Evgenii Zamiatin and Boris Pilnyak, and subsequently against Yiddish literature. The Communist Party's efforts to consolidate control over Soviet literature from 1929 to 1934 did not spare Yiddish literature and scholarship. This chapter, which focuses on Wiener's time in the Soviet Union and his adjustment to Soviet conditions in Kiev, also examines the “Leninist Period” in Soviet literary criticism and Wiener's move from Kiev to Moscow.Less
In 1926, Meir Wiener immigrated to the Soviet Union for economic and ideological reasons. While in Kiev, he worked as a research fellow at the Department for Jewish Proletarian Culture of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in April 1927. Wiener then transferred to the Kiev Institute for Jewish Proletarian Culture, where he was appointed as the head of the Section of Ethnography and Folklore, and published in Di royte velt a long essay reviewing two collections of poetry by the American Yiddish author H. Leyvick (Leyvik Halpern, 1888–1962). In 1929 a series of high-profile ideological campaigns were waged, first against prominent Russian writers such as Evgenii Zamiatin and Boris Pilnyak, and subsequently against Yiddish literature. The Communist Party's efforts to consolidate control over Soviet literature from 1929 to 1934 did not spare Yiddish literature and scholarship. This chapter, which focuses on Wiener's time in the Soviet Union and his adjustment to Soviet conditions in Kiev, also examines the “Leninist Period” in Soviet literary criticism and Wiener's move from Kiev to Moscow.
David Shepherd
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198156666
- eISBN:
- 9780191673221
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198156666.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter discusses the most important general issues raised by the analysis of several Soviet metafictions. These issues include the status of the author as grounding for critical discourse about ...
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This chapter discusses the most important general issues raised by the analysis of several Soviet metafictions. These issues include the status of the author as grounding for critical discourse about texts and the associated role of readers and critics in constituting and consolidating the hierarchical relations which underpin accounts of literary development and quality. This chapter also discusses the opinion of critics and philosophers on literary criticism.Less
This chapter discusses the most important general issues raised by the analysis of several Soviet metafictions. These issues include the status of the author as grounding for critical discourse about texts and the associated role of readers and critics in constituting and consolidating the hierarchical relations which underpin accounts of literary development and quality. This chapter also discusses the opinion of critics and philosophers on literary criticism.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804770071
- eISBN:
- 9780804777254
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804770071.003.0008
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
Meir Wiener applied Marxism primarily as an analytical method in his historical studies of Yiddish literature and as an ideological worldview in his Soviet literary criticism. He sought to construct ...
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Meir Wiener applied Marxism primarily as an analytical method in his historical studies of Yiddish literature and as an ideological worldview in his Soviet literary criticism. He sought to construct an idealized general concept of Soviet Yiddish literature in which conflicts and contradictions were nonexistent, and in which Marxist critical analysis was canceled by socialist realism as a “creative method,” giving rise to a utopian vision of reality. Wiener turned to theoretical criticism for the first time after 1932 at a time when Soviet literature was undergoing a radical transformation and socialist realism was getting institutionalized. This chapter focuses on his attempts to develop a comprehensive synthetic concept of modern Yiddish literature in the context of Marxist theory. It examines Wiener's response to the proletarian critics concerning Soviet literature and theory, his analysis of Perets Markish and David Bergelson, and his views about poetry and socialism as well as the Soviet Yiddish literary canon.Less
Meir Wiener applied Marxism primarily as an analytical method in his historical studies of Yiddish literature and as an ideological worldview in his Soviet literary criticism. He sought to construct an idealized general concept of Soviet Yiddish literature in which conflicts and contradictions were nonexistent, and in which Marxist critical analysis was canceled by socialist realism as a “creative method,” giving rise to a utopian vision of reality. Wiener turned to theoretical criticism for the first time after 1932 at a time when Soviet literature was undergoing a radical transformation and socialist realism was getting institutionalized. This chapter focuses on his attempts to develop a comprehensive synthetic concept of modern Yiddish literature in the context of Marxist theory. It examines Wiener's response to the proletarian critics concerning Soviet literature and theory, his analysis of Perets Markish and David Bergelson, and his views about poetry and socialism as well as the Soviet Yiddish literary canon.
Rebecca Gould
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780300200645
- eISBN:
- 9780300220759
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300200645.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, Russian Politics
This chapter traces the emergence of the anticolonial bandit (abrek) in Chechen Soviet literature. Beyond mapping this institution onto its broader social context, it studies how the sanctification ...
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This chapter traces the emergence of the anticolonial bandit (abrek) in Chechen Soviet literature. Beyond mapping this institution onto its broader social context, it studies how the sanctification of social banditry in Soviet literature recalibrates the dialectic between colonial and indigenous law in the nineteenth-century Caucasus. This dialectic is further complicated by the plurality of local legal norms, which oscillated between indigenous law (ʿādīt) and Islamic jurisprudence (sharīʿa). Rooted in precolonial traditions, the abrek functioned as the dominant idiom of indigenous insurgency during the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth century as the Muslim peoples of the Caucasus confronted the overwhelming force of Russia's imperial army. During the Soviet period, representing the abrek was one of the most powerful ways for the indigenous literary elite to contest imperial law. Drawing on Chechen, Russian, and Georgian literatures of anticolonial insurgency, the chapter reverses the causal relations between base and superstructure that obtain in Ranajit Guha's “elementary aspects of peasant insurgency” to document how the literary imagination mediates the memory of popular insurgency.Less
This chapter traces the emergence of the anticolonial bandit (abrek) in Chechen Soviet literature. Beyond mapping this institution onto its broader social context, it studies how the sanctification of social banditry in Soviet literature recalibrates the dialectic between colonial and indigenous law in the nineteenth-century Caucasus. This dialectic is further complicated by the plurality of local legal norms, which oscillated between indigenous law (ʿādīt) and Islamic jurisprudence (sharīʿa). Rooted in precolonial traditions, the abrek functioned as the dominant idiom of indigenous insurgency during the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth century as the Muslim peoples of the Caucasus confronted the overwhelming force of Russia's imperial army. During the Soviet period, representing the abrek was one of the most powerful ways for the indigenous literary elite to contest imperial law. Drawing on Chechen, Russian, and Georgian literatures of anticolonial insurgency, the chapter reverses the causal relations between base and superstructure that obtain in Ranajit Guha's “elementary aspects of peasant insurgency” to document how the literary imagination mediates the memory of popular insurgency.
David Shepherd
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198156666
- eISBN:
- 9780191673221
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198156666.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter examines Marietta Shaginyan's metafiction titled Kik. This short novel played a large part in installing and maintaining the perception of Shaginyan as a stolid, uncritical supported of ...
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This chapter examines Marietta Shaginyan's metafiction titled Kik. This short novel played a large part in installing and maintaining the perception of Shaginyan as a stolid, uncritical supported of the Soviet Union's literary and political institutions. The dominant mode in this work is hyperbolic stylization of familiar but anachronistic genres and this novel was characterized by the constant interplay of the literary versions of event with a reality whose own status is subtly called into question.Less
This chapter examines Marietta Shaginyan's metafiction titled Kik. This short novel played a large part in installing and maintaining the perception of Shaginyan as a stolid, uncritical supported of the Soviet Union's literary and political institutions. The dominant mode in this work is hyperbolic stylization of familiar but anachronistic genres and this novel was characterized by the constant interplay of the literary versions of event with a reality whose own status is subtly called into question.
Polly Jones
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198804345
- eISBN:
- 9780191842658
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198804345.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Social History
This chapter introduces the ‘Fiery Revolutionaries’ (Plamennye revoliutsionery) series of over 150 biographies and historical novels, published by Politizdat throughout late socialism until the ...
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This chapter introduces the ‘Fiery Revolutionaries’ (Plamennye revoliutsionery) series of over 150 biographies and historical novels, published by Politizdat throughout late socialism until the Soviet collapse. It contextualizes the decision to create the series, and to target sophisticated literary and historical writers regardless of their ‘official’ reputations, within the party’s urgent and persistent post-Stalinist demands for more emotionally and intellectually engaging revolutionary propaganda. At the same time, it suggests that this ‘historical turn’ was not just a top-down initiative, by highlighting the passionate interest in historical investigation and reflection shared by many post-Stalinist writers and ordinary Soviet readers. It also introduces key conceptual frameworks to understand the series’ operations within Politizdat, Soviet publishing, and the Soviet (and unofficial) literary worlds: ‘niches’ and ‘oases’ within official institutions; ‘in between’ and ‘grey zone’ literature; and the complex ‘circuit’ of Soviet writing, publishing, and reading.Less
This chapter introduces the ‘Fiery Revolutionaries’ (Plamennye revoliutsionery) series of over 150 biographies and historical novels, published by Politizdat throughout late socialism until the Soviet collapse. It contextualizes the decision to create the series, and to target sophisticated literary and historical writers regardless of their ‘official’ reputations, within the party’s urgent and persistent post-Stalinist demands for more emotionally and intellectually engaging revolutionary propaganda. At the same time, it suggests that this ‘historical turn’ was not just a top-down initiative, by highlighting the passionate interest in historical investigation and reflection shared by many post-Stalinist writers and ordinary Soviet readers. It also introduces key conceptual frameworks to understand the series’ operations within Politizdat, Soviet publishing, and the Soviet (and unofficial) literary worlds: ‘niches’ and ‘oases’ within official institutions; ‘in between’ and ‘grey zone’ literature; and the complex ‘circuit’ of Soviet writing, publishing, and reading.
Chone Shmeruk
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781904113171
- eISBN:
- 9781800340589
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781904113171.003.0014
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter discusses Yiddish literature in Poland between the two World Wars. After World War I, a schism began to divide the two major centres of Yiddish literature in Eastern Europe. Despite ...
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This chapter discusses Yiddish literature in Poland between the two World Wars. After World War I, a schism began to divide the two major centres of Yiddish literature in Eastern Europe. Despite certain difficulties with Polish censorship and in contrast to Soviet Yiddish literature, in independent Poland, Yiddish literature continued to develop in great freedom. Unlike the case of Soviet Yiddish literature, a direct and natural connection existed between writer and reader deriving from an unbroken cultural-historical continuum and enjoying the benefits of a native habitat. Despite the often bitter internal arguments, there was room in Yiddish literature in Poland for all possible ideologies and trends. Yiddish literature in Poland was essentially a secular literature, although there was also a surviving traditional religious Yiddish literature, as well as a new literature in Yiddish with religious orientations. Politically, Yiddish literature encompassed a wide range of ideological positions, from extreme nationalist literature which totally negated the ideological left, to fanatical communistic orientations.Less
This chapter discusses Yiddish literature in Poland between the two World Wars. After World War I, a schism began to divide the two major centres of Yiddish literature in Eastern Europe. Despite certain difficulties with Polish censorship and in contrast to Soviet Yiddish literature, in independent Poland, Yiddish literature continued to develop in great freedom. Unlike the case of Soviet Yiddish literature, a direct and natural connection existed between writer and reader deriving from an unbroken cultural-historical continuum and enjoying the benefits of a native habitat. Despite the often bitter internal arguments, there was room in Yiddish literature in Poland for all possible ideologies and trends. Yiddish literature in Poland was essentially a secular literature, although there was also a surviving traditional religious Yiddish literature, as well as a new literature in Yiddish with religious orientations. Politically, Yiddish literature encompassed a wide range of ideological positions, from extreme nationalist literature which totally negated the ideological left, to fanatical communistic orientations.
Ian Patterson
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199660865
- eISBN:
- 9780191757761
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199660865.003.0011
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
In 1933, John Rodker became the London agent for the official Soviet literary agency, the Press and Publisher Literary Service (PresLit). Until 1939 he was engaged with finding publishers for Soviet ...
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In 1933, John Rodker became the London agent for the official Soviet literary agency, the Press and Publisher Literary Service (PresLit). Until 1939 he was engaged with finding publishers for Soviet books, essays, short stories, screenplays and music in Britain and the United States, arranging their translation, and editing the short-lived magazine Soviet Culture (1934). This chapter traces Rodker’s central, complex and unacknowledged role in the Soviet Union’s self-presentation in Britain, drawing on the PresLit materials in Rodker’s archive at the University of Texas, Austin. Rodker’s negotiations between PresLit and British translators brings to light key figures in the dissemination of Soviet writing, whose influence in British interwar literary culture, especially its left-wing networks, has all but been eclipsed.Less
In 1933, John Rodker became the London agent for the official Soviet literary agency, the Press and Publisher Literary Service (PresLit). Until 1939 he was engaged with finding publishers for Soviet books, essays, short stories, screenplays and music in Britain and the United States, arranging their translation, and editing the short-lived magazine Soviet Culture (1934). This chapter traces Rodker’s central, complex and unacknowledged role in the Soviet Union’s self-presentation in Britain, drawing on the PresLit materials in Rodker’s archive at the University of Texas, Austin. Rodker’s negotiations between PresLit and British translators brings to light key figures in the dissemination of Soviet writing, whose influence in British interwar literary culture, especially its left-wing networks, has all but been eclipsed.
Polly Jones
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198804345
- eISBN:
- 9780191842658
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198804345.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Social History
This chapter traces the formation and evolution of the ‘Fiery Revolutionaries’ community in the Brezhnev era from three points of view: of writers as they decided whether and how to collaborate with ...
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This chapter traces the formation and evolution of the ‘Fiery Revolutionaries’ community in the Brezhnev era from three points of view: of writers as they decided whether and how to collaborate with it; editors, as they struggled to recruit writers and develop a distinctive culture for the series; and Politizdat’s managers and their party-state overseers, who were consistently suspicious of this unusual ‘niche’ and often interfered in it. Despite heavy censorship, political interference, and a large dose of conformist writing ‘to order’, the series sustained an ‘oasis’ or ‘niche’ within late Soviet literature, though this term fails to capture the effort involved in maintaining this sense of difference. In employing a very wide range of writers throughout late socialism, it also blurred the boundaries between Soviet and dissident literature, and compels us to reconsider the notion that ‘thaw’ writers, literary experimentation, and historical reflection migrated entirely into unofficial publishing after 1964 or 1968. Instead, such fragile niches kept late socialist literary identities and practices in flux throughout the Brezhnev period.Less
This chapter traces the formation and evolution of the ‘Fiery Revolutionaries’ community in the Brezhnev era from three points of view: of writers as they decided whether and how to collaborate with it; editors, as they struggled to recruit writers and develop a distinctive culture for the series; and Politizdat’s managers and their party-state overseers, who were consistently suspicious of this unusual ‘niche’ and often interfered in it. Despite heavy censorship, political interference, and a large dose of conformist writing ‘to order’, the series sustained an ‘oasis’ or ‘niche’ within late Soviet literature, though this term fails to capture the effort involved in maintaining this sense of difference. In employing a very wide range of writers throughout late socialism, it also blurred the boundaries between Soviet and dissident literature, and compels us to reconsider the notion that ‘thaw’ writers, literary experimentation, and historical reflection migrated entirely into unofficial publishing after 1964 or 1968. Instead, such fragile niches kept late socialist literary identities and practices in flux throughout the Brezhnev period.
Tatiana Gabroussenko
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824833961
- eISBN:
- 9780824870003
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824833961.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This concluding chapter summarizes the book's major findings and reconsiders the commonalties and specifics of North Korean literature in comparison with the Soviet model. It discusses the newly born ...
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This concluding chapter summarizes the book's major findings and reconsiders the commonalties and specifics of North Korean literature in comparison with the Soviet model. It discusses the newly born North Korean Communist regime's decision to “learn from the Soviets” by adopting the theory and practice of Soviet “socialist realism” as a political and artistic strategy. Through various channels of influence, including large-scale translations of Soviet literature and the activity of Soviet Koreans as living carriers of Soviet values, the North Korean literary and political world was able to absorb the Stalinist principles of managing culture and intellectuals. This transformed the North Korean literary cadre into yet another example of “engineers of the human soul,” or “soldiers on the cultural front.” This chapter also highlights some disparities between the literary politics of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the USSR.Less
This concluding chapter summarizes the book's major findings and reconsiders the commonalties and specifics of North Korean literature in comparison with the Soviet model. It discusses the newly born North Korean Communist regime's decision to “learn from the Soviets” by adopting the theory and practice of Soviet “socialist realism” as a political and artistic strategy. Through various channels of influence, including large-scale translations of Soviet literature and the activity of Soviet Koreans as living carriers of Soviet values, the North Korean literary and political world was able to absorb the Stalinist principles of managing culture and intellectuals. This transformed the North Korean literary cadre into yet another example of “engineers of the human soul,” or “soldiers on the cultural front.” This chapter also highlights some disparities between the literary politics of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the USSR.
Polly Jones
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198804345
- eISBN:
- 9780191842658
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198804345.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Social History
A major late Soviet initiative, the ‘Fiery Revolutionaries’ (Plamennye revoliutsionery) series, was launched to rekindle popular enthusiasm for the revolution, eventually giving rise to over 150 ...
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A major late Soviet initiative, the ‘Fiery Revolutionaries’ (Plamennye revoliutsionery) series, was launched to rekindle popular enthusiasm for the revolution, eventually giving rise to over 150 biographies and historical novels authored by many key post-Stalinist writers. What new meanings did revolution take on as it was reimagined by writers including dissidents, leading historians, and popular historical novelists? How did their millions of readers engage with these highly varied texts? To what extent does this Brezhnev-era publishing phenomenon challenge the notion of late socialism as a time of ‘stagnation’, and how does it confirm it? Through exploring the complex processes of writing, editing, censorship, and reading of late Soviet literature, Revolution Rekindled highlights the dynamic negotiations that continued within Soviet culture well past the apparent turning point of 1968 through to the late Gorbachev era. It also complicates the opposition between ‘official’ and underground post-Stalinist culture by showing how Soviet writers and readers engaged with both, as they sought answers to key questions of revolutionary history, ethics, and ideology: it thus reveals the enormous breadth and vitality of the ‘historical turn’ amongst the late Soviet population. Revolution Rekindled is the first archival, oral history, and literary study of this unique late socialist publishing experiment, from its beginnings in the early 1960s to its collapse in the early 1990s. It draws on a wide range of previously untapped archives, uses in-depth interviews with Brezhnev-era writers, editors, and publishers, and assesses the generic and stylistic innovations within the series’ biographies and novels.Less
A major late Soviet initiative, the ‘Fiery Revolutionaries’ (Plamennye revoliutsionery) series, was launched to rekindle popular enthusiasm for the revolution, eventually giving rise to over 150 biographies and historical novels authored by many key post-Stalinist writers. What new meanings did revolution take on as it was reimagined by writers including dissidents, leading historians, and popular historical novelists? How did their millions of readers engage with these highly varied texts? To what extent does this Brezhnev-era publishing phenomenon challenge the notion of late socialism as a time of ‘stagnation’, and how does it confirm it? Through exploring the complex processes of writing, editing, censorship, and reading of late Soviet literature, Revolution Rekindled highlights the dynamic negotiations that continued within Soviet culture well past the apparent turning point of 1968 through to the late Gorbachev era. It also complicates the opposition between ‘official’ and underground post-Stalinist culture by showing how Soviet writers and readers engaged with both, as they sought answers to key questions of revolutionary history, ethics, and ideology: it thus reveals the enormous breadth and vitality of the ‘historical turn’ amongst the late Soviet population. Revolution Rekindled is the first archival, oral history, and literary study of this unique late socialist publishing experiment, from its beginnings in the early 1960s to its collapse in the early 1990s. It draws on a wide range of previously untapped archives, uses in-depth interviews with Brezhnev-era writers, editors, and publishers, and assesses the generic and stylistic innovations within the series’ biographies and novels.