Kolyada I.V.
The National University of Pharmacy, Ukraine
The literature in Russia under
Joseph Stalin with the eyes of Western scholars
Introduction.
In the history of every nation, of course, there are personalities
that attract others because of their ambiguity and mystery; individuals who
were feared and worshiped, and may even be hated by millions. In our history,
culture and literature one of the best example of such a personality was Joseph
Stalin.
Aim. To provide the review of the articles by Western scholars.
Materials and methods. The analysis of literature materials in the
target field.
Western researchers often see Stalin as a tyrant
or "beast" who killed many people and kept in fear the entire
literary world of that time. As Martin Amis notes in his book "Koba The
Dread": "Stalin hated the intelligentsia, but he also cared about
what he called the creative manner of writing ... his famous expression -"
writers - They are engineers of human souls "...[1], but this is not just
a grand nonsense: this is a description of what he wanted for writers i.e. to
be under his complete control."[1] Martin Amis characterizes Stalin as
"cruel, narrow-minded and willing to control everything and everybody’s
rights"[1], especially in the sphere of literature: "Stalin
personally monitored the writers. He tortured and killed Babel. He destroyed
Mandelstam. He sentenced Gorky to a more terrible fate, gradually deforming his
talent and integrity."[1] The author emphasizes that Stalin did not
understand the fact that talented writers could not become "the engineers of
words"[1] and will not be able to transcend their talent and, therefore,
will not be able to survive in the Soviet reality. Non-talented writers will be
able to restructure themselves or, better to say, adapt to the needs of the
Soviet literary reality, and, therefore, will be able to survive. In
conclusion, the author notes that "being an untalented writer in the USSR
was a wonderful thing, and being talented is appaling and even
unbearable."[1]
Isai Berlin in his articles supports and
develops the tendency to perceive Stalin as a "ruthless ruler"[3] and
even compares it with Ivan the Terrible. The attitude of Stalin to the
development of literature and art in general is described "as a complete
waste of energy in vain - generally unnecessary in the context of"
five-year plans."[4] Talking about all the terrible trials that fell to
the lot of Soviet writers, Isai Berlin calls the Great Cleansing period a
"final horror."[3]
Isai Berlin writes that the memories of Stalin
in the foreign literature date back to the autumn of 1945: Isai Berlin
indicated this period in Russian literature as "the art in Russia under
Stalin's control" and "Stalin's war against Russian literature,"
and considered this period in the literary world as "the years of
persecution."[5] The peculiarity of the literature under Stalin was its
isolation from the whole world: "In its history, Russia had periods, to
some extents, isolation from the whole world ... although its literature in all
its periods provided proofs of a certain prototypical affirmation for the
difficult relations between Russia and the Western World ..."[5] At the
same time, the author of the article stresses that in the Soviet society the
following tendency was also piqued:" a mixed feeling of love and hatred
permeated the work of every well-known Russian writers, sometimes reaching the a
nonsense in protest against foreign influence ... "[5]
In his article, «Russian Literature under Lenin
and Stalin» Granville Williams describes the Russian literature of 1929-1932
years as "a period of destruction of personality in the literature, which
is related to the theories of "socialist realism", Imposed on writers
from above " [7], and the emergence of "concurrent total control in
every sphere of social, economic and cultural life under the influence of
Stalinism." [7] The author of this article describes censorship as
"the task to learn everything about every writer, important and not
important, who holds a pen on paper." [7] Thus, the author notes that at
the time of Stalinism, the boundaries between education and propaganda,
literacy and censorship were erased.
Margaret Tsiolkovsky wrote in her article
"Imagining Stalin in Literature and Art" that A. Rybakov's book
"The Children of Arbat" was one of the few works whose task was
"not to idealize, but to show Stalin as realistic as possible"[6].
The author outlines the main characteristic features of the literature of the
"Stalin’s era"[6]:
- A large number of propaganda, characteristic
of the "Stalin’s era", surrounded every Soviet man; This literature
was aimed at "praising the dictator."[6] The notion of Stalin in the
Soviet literature of the 20th century: "wise, imperturbable,
unpretentious, devoted to his people." The visual image of Stalin was
associated with "his pipe, his boots, his mustache, his burning and
penetrating gaze" [6];
- Negative attitude towards Stalin and
Stalinism, which was observed in a number of historical works and memoirs.
These contradictory tendencies, characteristic
of that period, "had an indelible effect on the literary image of
Stalin," [6] which led to the development of some stereotypical vision of
this person, as well as to the "demonic embodiment of the socialist
evil." [6] Modern literature, from the point of view of Margaret
Tsiolkovsky, has a completely different idea of the image of
Stalin, since "it is aimed at exposing those characteristics and traits
with which Stalin allegedly was endowed."[6] The task of contemporary
literature seems to the authors in the "destruction of the created
improbable image of Stalin."[6]
Conclusions. Taking into account
all of the above mentioned ideas, we can conclude that Russian literature, in
terms of the foreign researches, has the following features:
1) Stalin's dictatorship, which assumed complete
subordination of literature and art in general to the Soviet regime;
2) the emergence of various types of control and
levers of influence on the literature - "Sovet Pisateley"; The second
half of 1939 was the period of the arrests of many writers, they were shot or
sent to camps for many years;
3) literature was supposed to support the Soviet
power in everything and glorify it "in every printed word"[6];
4) the policy was to guide, or better to say, control
the arts in everything.
1. Martin Aims / Koba The Dread. – London: Vintage Press, 2003. – 306 p.
2. Laslo Beladi, Krausz Tamàs. Sztalin – Ì.: Politizdat, 1989. – 318 ñ.
3. Isaiah Berlin / The Arts in Russia Under Stalin: [electronic resource] / URL. – http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2000/10/19/the-arts-in-russia-under-stalin/
4. Isaiah Berlin / Conversations with Akhmatova and Pasternak: [electronic resource] / URL. –http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1980/11/20/conversations-with-akhmatova-and-pasternak/
5.
Isaiah Berlin / A Message
To The 21st Century: [electronic resource] / URL. – http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/10/23/message-21st-century/
6.
Margaret Ziolkowski /
Imagining Stalin in Literature and Art: [electronic resource] / URL. – http://www.miamioh.edu/
7. Granville Williams / Russian Literature under Lenin and Stalin: [electronic resource] / URL. – https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isj/1973/no058/williams.htm