Information about the author:
Vadim V. Polonsky
Vadim V. Polonsky, DSc in Philology, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Director, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25 а, 121069 Moscow, Russia; Professor, Sichuan University, No. 24, South Section 1, Yihuan Road, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, 610065, China.
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0491-2088
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Abstract:
This article observes that approaches grounded in the study of literary institutions have recently become the most productive in the scholarly historiography of Russian literature. This holds particularly true for twentiethcentury Russian literature, especially the early Soviet period. The work traces the trajectory of Russian literary institutions from the revolutionary threshold, through the era of relatively autonomous literary groups flourishing, to the victory of state-centric centralism embodied in the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee Resolution of April 23, 1932, “On the Restructuring of Literary and Artistic Organizations.” This resolution mandated the dissolution of literary unions established in the 1920s in favor of a single, unifying Union of Soviet Writers (SSP), tasked with suppressing the former pluralistic patchwork of diverse class-based and multi-ethnic writers’ groups. Particular attention is paid to the competitive struggles of the All-Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (VAPP) and its derivative organizations against ideological opponents, contextualized within the market-oriented policies of the NEP era and intraparty conflicts.
Keywords: history of Russian literature, literary institutions, Soviet literary policy, VAPP.
