Issue 2 (71)

“THE PARTY’S COMMANDS OR THE HEART’S DESIRE…”: SEVERAL PAGES FROM THE HISTORY OF THE SVERDLOVSK BRANCH OF THE UNION OF SOVIET WRITERS (1946)
Year 2021 Number 2(71)
Pages 169-176 Type scientific article
UDC 94(470.5)“1946ˮ BBK 63.3(283.64)631-72
Authors Rusina Yulia A.
Topic HISTORICAL MOSAIC
Summary The article considers the traces of external influences on the works of Soviet (including Ural) writers in the first post-war year, which marked the end of the so-called first thaw period (1943–1946), a brief spiritual upsurge in the society recovering from the global catastrophe. In this article, the term external influence refers to the ideological pressure coming from the literary critics, colleagues, and other similar phenomena of Soviet culture expressed in ideological discourse. Addressing historical materials that preserved such evidence makes it possible to see the goals of the authorities aiming to control creative processes and, to a certain extent, intellectual and moral level of the authorities themselves as well. The protocols of general and party meetings of the Sverdlovsk branch of the Union of Soviet Writers for 1946 used in this study can be attributed to this kind of documentary sources. Theoretically, the analysis builds on E. A. Dobrenko’s ideas about “formation of the Soviet writer” and on the concept of “ideal type of social realism writer” proposed by T. A. Kruglova, as well as on the understanding of socialist realism as a method of structuring a literary work within the framework of socialist ideology. It was impossible to ignore the impact that the resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party on the journals “Zvezda” and “Leningrad” (August 14, 1946) had made on the Soviet writers. It provoked numerous discussions on “insufficiently high ideological level” of fiction in the regional branches of the Union of Soviet Writers, and restricted the course of national literature that impeded its development for years. Much attention is paid to the discussion of the unpublished short story “Meeting” (1946) by the Ural writer Nina Popova that took place in the Sverdlovsk regional organization of the Union of Soviet Writers and at the Moscow regional seminar of prose writers, as well as to the analysis of the text of the story.
Keywords Sverdlovsk branch of the Union of Soviet writers, N. Popova, Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) 14.08.1946 on the journals “Zvezda” and “Leningrad”, P. P. Bazhov, B. Dizhur, K. Bogoliubov, Ural writers, V. V. Ermilov
References

Babichenko D. L. Pisateli i tsenzory. Sovetskaia literatura 1940-kh godov pod politicheskim kontrolem TsK [The writers and the censors. Soviet literature of the 1940s under the political control of the Central Committee]. Moscow: ITs “Rossiia molodaia” Publ., 1994. (in Russ.).

Ekaterinburg literaturnyy: entsiklopedicheskiy slovar’ [Literary Ekaterinburg: encyclopedic dictionary]. Ekaterinburg: Kabinetnyy uchenyy Publ., 2016. (in Russ.).

Dobrenko E. Formovka sovetskogo pisatelya. Socyal’nyye i esteticheskiye istoki sovetskoy literaturnoy kul’tury [Formation of the Soviet writer. Social and aesthetic origins of Soviet literary culture]. Saint Petersburg: Gumanitarnoye agentstvo “Akademicheskiy proyekt” Publ., 1999. (in Russ.).

Dobrenko E. Metafora vlasti: Literatura stalinskoy epokhi v istoricheskom osveschenii [Metaphor of Power. Literature of the Stalinist era in historical coverage]. Munich: Otto Sagner, 1993. (in Russ.).

Gromova N. A. Raspad: Sud’ba sovetskoy kritiki v 40-e–50-e gody [Decay: The fate of Soviet criticism in the 40s–50s]. Moscow: Ellis Lak Publ., 2009. (in Russ.).

Kruglova T. A. Sovetskaia khudozhestvennost’, ili Neskromnoe obaianie sotsrealizma [Soviet artistry, or Indiscreet charm of socialist realism]. Ekaterinburg: Gumanitarnyy universitet Publ., 2005. (in Russ.).

Litovskaia M. A. [Image of P. P. Bazhov in the Modern Russian Media: A Biographical Turn]. Izvestiya Ural’skogo federal’nogo universiteta. Seriya 2. Gumanitarnyye nauki [Izvestia. Ural Federal University Journal. Series 2. Humanities and Arts], 2020, vol. 22, no. 2 (198), pp. 138–150. DOI: 10.15826/izv2.2020.22.2.028 (in Russ.).

Rusina Yu. A. [The rhymes of life. Ural State University students’ literature circle: a history (mid-1940s)]. Izvestiya Ural’skogo federal’nogo universiteta. Seriya 2. Gumanitarnyye nauki [Izvestia. Ural Federal University Journal. Series 2. Humanities and Arts], 2011, no. 4 (96), pp. 269–285. (in Russ.).

Rusina Yu. A. [Between repentance and confession: students’ literary works during the last decade of Stalin’s rule]. Izvestiya Ural’skogo federal’nogo universiteta. Seriya 2. Gumanitarnyye nauki [Izvestia. Ural Federal University Journal. Series 2. Humanities and Arts], 2014, no. 1 (124), pp. 149–163. (in Russ.).

Sizov S. G. [Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) on Leningrad journals (1946) and ideological work of party bodies with Western Siberia writers]. Omskiy Nauchnyy Vestnik [The Journal Omsk Scientific Bulletin], 2001, no. 17, pp. 22–27. (in Russ.). 

 
Download in PDF