Adding to Victor Fet’s comment on the Soviet’s brutal attack on artistic freedom and creativity, I see a new book on the subject reviewed by Wendell Steavenson in the latest Sunday Times: ENGINEERS OF THE SOUL, In the Footsteps of Stalin’s Writers, by Frank Westerman (Harvill Secker, £14.99 pp 306.)
Westerman reminds us of the romantic novel under Soviet Socialist Realism: Boy meets Girl, Girl meets Tractor.
He tells of Akhmatova reduced to writing poems in praise of Stalin to try and get her son released from the camps.
And who dare blame her for that? “Stalin corralled the liriki to match the efforts of the fisiki, to serve the breakneck industriaiization of the 1930s.” “If workers can pour concrete in brigades, why can’t brigades of writers produce a collective book?” (M Gorky)
The reviewer warns us not to expect a comprehensive study on Soviet Literature (a well-ploughed field). Rather, Westerman seeks new ground, covering lesser-known writers, especially the ‘hangers-on’ who suffered but survived.
Carolyn asks: Has anyone ever speculated, by the way, as to what kind of soviet writer Nabokov would have made?
The quick answer is a MURDERED Soviet writer, like Mandelstam and Babel.
The gruesome tale of Stalin coaxing Maxim Gorky back to the CCCP offers scant food for further speculation. Gorky succumbed and was richly rewarded for becoming “Godfather of the subversion of literature to the efficacies of the Five-Year Plan!”
But, a huge BUT, to even THINK of that happening to the exiled Vladimir Nabokov is UNTHINKABLE! Still, just imagine: Stalin naming a whole city for Nabokov, an honour Uncle Joe bestowed on the obsequious Gorky in 1932 (it reverted to Nizhny Novgorod in 1991).
Stan Kelly-Bootle
On 15/05/2010 16:30, "Carolyn Kunin" <chaiselongue@EARTHLINK.NET> wrote:
On May 14, 2010, at 9:16 AM, Alexey Sklyarenko wrote: Dear Carolyn, Belyi isn't a Soviet writer. Neither is Chekhov. He came from medvezhiy ugol (a god-forsaken place) of Russia (Taganrog), but is too great an artist to be dismissed as provincial.
Dear Alexey,
Some of Chekhov is provincial, but not in the derogatory sense - - yes, agreed. But in what way is Bely not a soviet writer? Has anyone ever speculated, by the way, as to what kind of soviet writer Nabokov would have made?
Carolyn