Synopses & Reviews
Introduction: Literature and the Political Problem
1. Since 1917: A Brief History
Soviet Literature
Persistence of the Past
Fellow Travelers
Proletarians
The Stalinists
Socialist Realism
The Thaw
The Sixties and Seventies
2. Mayakovsky and the Left Front of Art
The Suicide Note
Vladimir Mayakovsky, A Tragedy
The Cloud
"The Backbone Flute"
The Commune and the Left Front
The Bedbug and The Bath
Mayakovsky as a Monument
Poets of Different Camps
3. Prophets of a Brave New World
The Machine and England
Olesha's Critique of the Reason
Envy and Rage
4. The Intellectuals, I
Serapions
Boris Pilnyak: Biology and History
5. The Intellectuals, II
Isaac Babel: Horror in a Minor Key
Konstantin Fedin: The Confrontation with Europe
Leonov and Katayev
Conclusion
6. The Proletarians, I
The Proletcult
The Blacksmith Poets
Yury Libedinsky: Communists as Human Beings
Tarasov-Rodionov: ,"Our Own Wives, Our Own Children"
Dmitry Furmanov: An Earnest Commissar
A. S. Serafimovich: A Popular Saga
7. The Proletarians, II
Fyodor Gladkov: A Literary Autodidact
Alexander Fadeyev: The Search for a New Leo Tolstoy
Mikhail Sholokhov: The Don Cossacks
A Scatter of Minor Deities
Conclusion
8. The Critic Voronsky and the Pereval Group
Criticism and the Study of Literature
Voronsky
Pereval
9. The Levers of Control under Stalin
Resistance
The Purge
The Literary State
10. Zoshchenko and the Art of Satire
11. After Stalin: The First Two Thaws
Pomerantsev, Panova, and The Guests
Ilya Ehrenburg and Alexey Tolstoy
The Second Thaw
The Way of Pasternak
12. Into the Underground
The Literary Parties
The Trouble with Gosizdat: End of a Thaw
Buried Treasure: Platonov and Bulgakov
The Exodus into Samizdat and Tamizdat: Sinyavsky
13. Solzhenitsyn and the Epic of the Camps
One Day
The First Circle and The Cancer Ward
The Gulag
The Calf and the Oak: Dichtung and Wahrheit
Other Contributions to the Epic
14. The Surface Channel, I: The Village
15. The Surface Channel, II: Variety of Theme and Style
The City: Intelligentsia, Women, Workers
The Backwoods: Ethical Problems
Other New Voices of the Sixties and Seventies
World War II
Published Poets
A Final Word on Socialist Realism
16. Exiles, Early and Late
The Exile Experience
"Young Prose" and What Became of It
Religious Quest: Maximov and Ternovsky
Truth through Obscenity: Yuz Aleshkovsky
Transcendence and Tragedy: Erofeev's Trip
Poetry of the Daft: Sasha Sokolov
Perversion of Logic as Ideology: Alexander Zinoviev
A Gathering of Writers
Conclusion
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
Synopsis
Introduction: Literature and the Political Problem
1. Since 1917: A Brief History
Soviet Literature
Persistence of the Past
Fellow Travelers
Proletarians
The Stalinists
Socialist Realism
The Thaw
The Sixties and Seventies
2. Mayakovsky and the Left Front of Art
The Suicide Note
Vladimir Mayakovsky, A Tragedy
The Cloud
The Backbone Flute
The Commune and the Left Front
The Bedbug and The Bath
Mayakovsky as a Monument
Poets of Different Camps
3. Prophets of a Brave New World
The Machine and England
Olesha's Critique of the Reason
Envy and Rage
4. The Intellectuals, I
Serapions
Boris Pilnyak: Biology and History
5. The Intellectuals, II
Isaac Babel: Horror in a Minor Key
Konstantin Fedin: The Confrontation with Europe
Leonov and Katayev
Conclusion
6. The Proletarians, I
The Proletcult
The Blacksmith Poets
Yury Libedinsky: Communists as Human Beings
Tarasov-Rodionov: , Our Own Wives, Our Own Children
Dmitry Furmanov: An Earnest Commissar
A. S. Serafimovich: A Popular Saga
7. The Proletarians, II
Fyodor Gladkov: A Literary Autodidact
Alexander Fadeyev: The Search for a New Leo Tolstoy
Mikhail Sholokhov: The Don Cossacks
A Scatter of Minor Deities
Conclusion
8. The Critic Voronsky and the Pereval Group
Criticism and the Study of Literature
Voronsky
Pereval
9. The Levers of Control under Stalin
Resistance
The Purge
The Literary State
10. Zoshchenko and the Art of Satire
11. After Stalin: The First Two Thaws
Pomerantsev, Panova, and The Guests
Ilya Ehrenburg and Alexey Tolstoy
The Second Thaw
The Way of Pasternak
12. Into the Underground
The Literary Parties
The Trouble with Gosizdat: End of a Thaw
Buried Treasure: Platonov and Bulgakov
The Exodus into Samizdat and Tamizdat: Sinyavsky
13. Solzhenitsyn and the Epic of the Camps
One Day
The First Circle and The Cancer Ward
The Gulag
The Calf and the Oak: Dichtung and Wahrheit
Other Contributions to the Epic
14. The Surface Channel, I: The Village
15. The Surface Channel, II: Variety of Theme and Style
The City: Intelligentsia, Women, Workers
The Backwoods: Ethical Problems
Other New Voices of the Sixties and Seventies
World War II
Published Poets
A Final Word on Socialist Realism
16. Exiles, Early and Late
The Exile Experience
Young Prose and What Became of It
Religious Quest: Maximov and Ternovsky
Truth through Obscenity: Yuz Aleshkovsky
Transcendence and Tragedy: Erofeev's Trip
Poetry of the Daft: Sasha Sokolov
Perversion of Logic as Ideology: Alexander Zinoviev
A Gathering of Writers
Conclusion
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
Synopsis
Long recognized as the best and most comprehensive work on its subject, Brown's fine book is now thoroughly revised and updated. It provides a comprehensive treatment of Russian literature, including underground and migr writings, from 1917 to the early 1980s.
Every stage in the evolution of Russian literature since 1917, every major author, all the important literary organizations, groups, and movements, are sharply outlined, with a wealth of often unfamiliar detail and a notable economy of means. Critical essays on Mayakovsky, Zamyatin, Olesha, Pasternak, Brodsky, Solzhenitsyn, Rasputin, Erofeev, and many others offer sophisticated formal and thematic analyses of a very large array of literary masterpieces.
The book examines and makes intelligible the persistent conflict between the writer and the state, between the literary artist's urge for untrammeled self-expression and the pervasive control of intellectual activity exercised by the Soviet government. Chapters on "The Levers of Control under Stalin," "The First Two Thaws," "Into the Underground," and "Solzhenitsyn and the Epic of the Camps" reveal the conditions under which Russian literature was produced in various periods and investigate the forces that drove an important segment of the literature into clandestine publication or into exile. "Exiles, Early and Late" deals with some of the leading figures in migr literature and examines the condition of exile as an influence on literary creation. "The Surface Channel" describes and analyzes a number of significant works published aboveground in the Soviet Union during the sixties and seventies. Brown abandons the old distinction between Soviet and migr literature, treating all Russian writing as part of a single stream, divided since 1917 into two currents not totally separate but subtly interrelated.
Synopsis
Every stage in the evolution of Russian literature since 1917, every major author, all the important literary organizations, groups, and movements, are sharply outlined, with a wealth of often unfamiliar detail and a notable economy of means. Critical essays on Mayakovsky, Zamyatin, Olesha, Pasternak, Brodsky, Solzhenitsyn, Rasputin, Erofeev, and many others offer sophisticated formal and thematic analyses of a very large array of literary masterpieces.
Table of Contents
Long recognized as the best and most comprehensive work on its subject, Edward J. Brown's fine book is now thoroughly revised and updated. It provides a compendious treatment of Russian literature from the revolutionary period to the early 1980s.
Every stage in the evolution of Russian literature since 1917, every major author, all the important literary organizations, groups, and movements, are sharply outlined, with a wealth of often unfamiliar detail and a notable economy of means. Critical essays on Mayakovsky, Zamyatin, Olesha, Pasternak, Brodsky, Solzhenitsyn, Rasputin, Erofeev, and many others offer sophisticated formal and thematic analyses of a very large array of literary masterpieces.
The book examines and makes intelligible the persistent conflict between the writer and the state, between the literary artist's urge for untrammeled self-expression and the pervasive control of intellectual activity exercised by the Soviet government. Chapters on "The Levers of Control under Stalin," "The First Two Thaws," "Into the Underground," and "Solzhenitsyn and the Epic of the Camps" reveal the conditions under which Russian literature was produced in various periods and investigate the forces that drove an important segment of the literature into clandestine publication or into exile. "Exiles, Early and Late" deals with some of the leading figures in émigré literature and examines the condition of exile as an influence on literary creation. "The Surface Channel" describes and analyzes a number of significant works published aboveground in the Soviet Union during the sixties and seventies. Brown abandons the old distinction between Soviet and émigré literature, treating all Russian writing as part of a single stream, divided since 1917 into two currents not totally separate but subtly interrelated.