Abstract
In the previous chapter we saw the Russian contribution to “good” through their attempts to create or describe social types which could act as models of behaviour. The possibility of different types or versions of “good” was thus made clear, each with advantages and drawbacks. Incidentally, I call this the “Russian contribution” since I think one can safely assert that Western literature never manifested to the extent that Russian literature did the desire to invent “models” or “typical characters” through which the artist could present a critique of his own society. Here, then, we turn to different types of evil; and, interestingly enough, the narrative picks up from where we left the history of Russian literary thought in the preceding chapter.
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Quoted in Andrei Siniavskii, For Freedom of Imagination. Essays by the Imprisoned Soviet Critic on Pasternak, Yevtushenko, Ahhmatove, Robert Frost and Other Subjects, translated and with an introduction by Laszlo Tikos and Murray Peppard (1971), p. XVII.
This, I think, is seen in the bulk of so-called Holocaust literature which often assumes the form of testimonials or dying declarations. From a historical and sociological point of view such writing constitutes an important “source of information”. From a linguistic point of view, such literature “can meaningfully and sensibly be read as [constituting] quasi legal documents.” But from an aesthetic point of view such works cannot, it seems to me, to be subjected to ordinary literary criticism; and they do suggest an (inevitable) drying out of creativity. For more details (and references to further literature) see Sidra Kranz Moshinsky. “Literature of the Holocaust: The Testimonial of the Witness” in The Happy Couple. Law and Literature (J. Neville Turner and Pamela Williams, eds.) (1994), pp. 157 ff.
“The Prevention of Literature” reprinted in Essays (Penguin reprint, 2000), p. 334.
“Little Heroes and Big Deeds: Literature responds to the First Five-Year Plan” in Sheila Fitzpatrick (ed.), Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1928–1931 (1978), pp. 180, 192 — a most valuable collection of essays on the sociological and political foundations of the literature of this period.
Indeed, knowledgeable authors attribute much of the “bullying” to the infamous “proletarian” literary association RAPP, which was particularly militant and active during the late 1920’s. For more details see Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick, “Cultural Revolution as Class War” in Sheila Fitzpatrick (ed.), Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1928–1931 (1978), pp. 8, 28 ff.
The Soviet Novel. History as Ritual (3rd ed. 2000), p. 36.
University of California Press (1982 edition), p. 134.
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Works, 3rd ed., vol. VIII, p. 387: “Literary works must become a component part of the work of the organized, planned, united, social democratic party.” (translated by Eugenie Markesinis).
“For a Close Link Between Literature and Art and the Life of the People,” Kommunist magazine, no. 12 (1957), reproduced in Siniavskii’s On Socialist Realism (University of California Press edition 1982), p. 164.
The Soviet Novel. History as Ritual (3rd ed. 2000), p. 30.
Op. cit. previous note, p. 252.
By Andrei Donatovich Siniavskii in On Socialist Realism (1959). The book was published abroad under the assumed name of Abraham Tertz but the advantages of anonymity were lost when it was traced back to him and he was put on trial in 1965 — the first trial based on the contents of a work — for his alleged hypocrisy in saying one thing in the works published in Russian under his real name and another in those published abroad under his pseudonym. Selected documents from the trial can be found in Leopold Labedz and Max Hayward (eds.), On Trial. The Case of Siniavskii (Tertz) and Daniel (Arzhak) (1967).
The full text of the letter is reproduced in the introduction of the Penguin edition of 1977, p. 12.
From among the vast literature see Deming Brown, Soviet Literature since Stalin, C.U.P (1978); J. C. Vaughn, Soviet Socialist Realism: Origins and Theory. New York: St. Martin’s Press 1973.
Katerina Clark, “Little Heroes and Big Deeds: Literature Responds to the First Five-year Plan” in Sheila Fitzpatrick (ed.), Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1928–1931 (1978), pp. 189, 190.
Something which did not occur with his next novel Energy, published in 1932.
Katerina Clark, “Little Heroes and Big Deeds: Literature Responds to the First Five-year Plan” in Sheila Fitzpatrick (ed.), Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1928–1931 (1978), at p. 191.
Ibid.
On Social Realism (1972), p. 200.
Professor Katerina Clark’s The Soviet Novel. History as Literature (3rd ed. 2000), p. xii, adopts a less judgmental approach, attempting instead “a dynamic account of the novel’s evolution, seen in the general context of Soviet culture.” Her background account does not, I feel, in any way conflict with my more critical evaluation because of its restraining effects on human freedom.
The White Guard, completed in 1924, published in 1966.
Most notably in his The First Circle though see, also, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denysovich. For a general account see also Evgenia Ginsburg’s fascinating account of the camps in Journey Into the World Wind (1989).
The reverse influence — English on Russian — must, however, also be noted since Zamiatin, who had worked in Newcastle upon Tyne during the earlier years of the First World War as a naval architect supervising the building of some Russian ice breakers was a fluent English speaker, a great admirer of H. G. Wells, and subsequently even wrote two essays about him in Russian, published in 1922 and 1924, respectively.
C. S. Lewis, “George Orwell” in Lesley Walmsley (ed.), Essay Collection. Literature, Philosophy and Short Stories (2000), pp. 155, 157.
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(2007). Controlling People’s Thoughts. In: Good and Evil in Art and Law. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-211-49919-1_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-211-49919-1_7
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