Information about the author:
Lyudmila Yu. Surovova
Lyudmila Yu. Surovova, PhD in Philology, Senior Researcher, А.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya St., 25A, bld. 1, 121069 Moscow, Russia.
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6163-1530
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Abstract:
The article collects and analyzes the responses of contemporaries to the story by Мikhail Prishvin, "The Undressed Spring" (1939), presenting a range of opinions about this work. А. Kozachinsky, the author of "The Green Wagon," spoke enthusiastically of "The Undressed Spring," while Аndrei Platonov wrote a scathing review. "The Undressed Spring," along with the poem "Forest Drop" published after it, became a convenient target for accusing Prishvin of apoliticalism. The journal "New World" seriously upbraided the writer for not participating in the life of his homeland "in the most tumultuous, full of construction and struggle period of its history." This article shows that this anti-Prishvin campaign in 1940 echoed another that had taken place a decade earlier. Аs early as 1930, RАPP critics called Prishvin for his "Kashchey's Chain" (1927) and "Crane's Homeland" (1930) writer alien to the new proletarian culture. Prishvin was demanded to portray nature in his writings as subordinate to social goals. But Prishvin managed to defend his position and take his place in Soviet literature, helped by А.М. Gorky.
