Katharine Hodgson
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197262894
- eISBN:
- 9780191734977
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197262894.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This book is an examination of a poet whose career offers a case study in the complexities facing Soviet writers in the Stalin era. Ol′ga Berggol′ts (1910–1975) was a prominent Russian Soviet poet, ...
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This book is an examination of a poet whose career offers a case study in the complexities facing Soviet writers in the Stalin era. Ol′ga Berggol′ts (1910–1975) was a prominent Russian Soviet poet, whose accounts of heroism in wartime Leningrad brought her fame. This book addresses her position as a writer whose Party loyalties were frequently in conflict with the demands of artistic and personal integrity. Writers who pursued their careers under the restrictions of the Stalin era have been categorized as ‘official’ figures whose work is assumed to be drab, inept and opportunistic; but such assumptions impose a uniformity on the work of Soviet writers that the censors and the Writers Union could not achieve. An exploration of Berggol′ts's work shows that the borders between ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ literature were in fact permeable and shifting. This book draws on unpublished sources such as diaries and notebooks to reveal the range and scope of her work, and to show how conflict and ambiguity functioned as a creative structuring principle. The text discusses how Berggol′ts's lyric poetry constructs the subject from multiple, conflicting discourses, and examines the poet's treatment of genres such as narrative verse, verse tragedy and prose in the changing cultural context of the 1950s. Berggol′ts's use of inter-textual, and especially intra-textual, reference is also investigated; the intensively self-referential nature of her work creates a web of allusion that connects texts of different genres, ‘official’ as well as ‘unofficial’ writing.Less
This book is an examination of a poet whose career offers a case study in the complexities facing Soviet writers in the Stalin era. Ol′ga Berggol′ts (1910–1975) was a prominent Russian Soviet poet, whose accounts of heroism in wartime Leningrad brought her fame. This book addresses her position as a writer whose Party loyalties were frequently in conflict with the demands of artistic and personal integrity. Writers who pursued their careers under the restrictions of the Stalin era have been categorized as ‘official’ figures whose work is assumed to be drab, inept and opportunistic; but such assumptions impose a uniformity on the work of Soviet writers that the censors and the Writers Union could not achieve. An exploration of Berggol′ts's work shows that the borders between ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ literature were in fact permeable and shifting. This book draws on unpublished sources such as diaries and notebooks to reveal the range and scope of her work, and to show how conflict and ambiguity functioned as a creative structuring principle. The text discusses how Berggol′ts's lyric poetry constructs the subject from multiple, conflicting discourses, and examines the poet's treatment of genres such as narrative verse, verse tragedy and prose in the changing cultural context of the 1950s. Berggol′ts's use of inter-textual, and especially intra-textual, reference is also investigated; the intensively self-referential nature of her work creates a web of allusion that connects texts of different genres, ‘official’ as well as ‘unofficial’ writing.
Andrew Kahn, Mark Lipovetsky, Irina Reyfman, and Stephanie Sandler
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780199663941
- eISBN:
- 9780191770463
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199663941.003.0032
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This chapter explores the development of Russian modernism and avant-garde trends into the 1920s in relation to the new institutions of the Silver Age (1890s–1917), pausing on why the period has ...
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This chapter explores the development of Russian modernism and avant-garde trends into the 1920s in relation to the new institutions of the Silver Age (1890s–1917), pausing on why the period has proven hard to define. It discusses key modernist journals and the social contexts, including groups and societies, that were formative for writers. How these cultural processes changed in Soviet Russia under a regime of political and aesthetic state control, and in Russia Abroad, is charted. While Socialist Realism became the dominant aesthetic from the 1930s, the chapter shows how innovations in language and theory (including Formalism and structuralism) as well as independent literary institutions bypassed official doctrines and led to important experimentation. The chapter tracks a number of phenomena bridged unofficial literary culture and the post-Soviet literary field.Less
This chapter explores the development of Russian modernism and avant-garde trends into the 1920s in relation to the new institutions of the Silver Age (1890s–1917), pausing on why the period has proven hard to define. It discusses key modernist journals and the social contexts, including groups and societies, that were formative for writers. How these cultural processes changed in Soviet Russia under a regime of political and aesthetic state control, and in Russia Abroad, is charted. While Socialist Realism became the dominant aesthetic from the 1930s, the chapter shows how innovations in language and theory (including Formalism and structuralism) as well as independent literary institutions bypassed official doctrines and led to important experimentation. The chapter tracks a number of phenomena bridged unofficial literary culture and the post-Soviet literary field.
Andrew Kahn, Mark Lipovetsky, Irina Reyfman, and Stephanie Sandler
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780199663941
- eISBN:
- 9780191770463
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199663941.003.0031
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
Part V explores the relationship between the dramatic history of the twentieth century and the transformations of Russian literary culture and poetics, arguing that the story is one of unexpected ...
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Part V explores the relationship between the dramatic history of the twentieth century and the transformations of Russian literary culture and poetics, arguing that the story is one of unexpected continuities as much as rupture. The Part outlines the development of Russian modernism and the avant-garde in the Silver Age (1890s–1917), moving on to the avant-garde poetics and institutions reinvented in late Soviet (1960s–early 1980s), and treating underground and post-Soviet literature (since 1991), as well as the émigré literature of Russia Abroad. Émigré and Soviet literature are shown to follow some similar patterns and themes, just as official and underground literature alike explore ways to represent the century’s catastrophes, and to test the responsibilities of the intelligentsia. The desire to break with the past emerges as a theme, as does a struggle over forms of cultural continuity. Women writers play key roles across multiple time periods, locales, and aesthetic forms. Part V analyzes the workings of political and aesthetic censorship during the domination of Socialist Realism, and it explores poetry as a discourse of subjectivity. It includes attention to utopian/dystopian and national narratives, and ends with an account of the intelligentsia’s cultural and historical self-identification.Less
Part V explores the relationship between the dramatic history of the twentieth century and the transformations of Russian literary culture and poetics, arguing that the story is one of unexpected continuities as much as rupture. The Part outlines the development of Russian modernism and the avant-garde in the Silver Age (1890s–1917), moving on to the avant-garde poetics and institutions reinvented in late Soviet (1960s–early 1980s), and treating underground and post-Soviet literature (since 1991), as well as the émigré literature of Russia Abroad. Émigré and Soviet literature are shown to follow some similar patterns and themes, just as official and underground literature alike explore ways to represent the century’s catastrophes, and to test the responsibilities of the intelligentsia. The desire to break with the past emerges as a theme, as does a struggle over forms of cultural continuity. Women writers play key roles across multiple time periods, locales, and aesthetic forms. Part V analyzes the workings of political and aesthetic censorship during the domination of Socialist Realism, and it explores poetry as a discourse of subjectivity. It includes attention to utopian/dystopian and national narratives, and ends with an account of the intelligentsia’s cultural and historical self-identification.
