Русская эмиграция первой волны о советской литературе и социалистическом реализме

Abstract

The paper presents an overview of the critical opinions of prominent representatives of literature, criticism and philosophical thought of the Russian European Diaspora (the “first wave” of Russian emigration). The main attention is paid to the literary process in the USSR in the 1920s–30s, in some cases Soviet post-war literature is also touched upon. The spectrum of assessments ranges from recognizing the complete failure of Soviet literature, which, moreover, has no prospects for positive development as long as Soviet power exists, — to recognizing certain successes of a number of young authors. It is quite widely believed that the most valuable period is the first post-revolutionary decade, which produced a number of good works by L. Leonov, B. Pilnyak, K. Fedin, while the general decline begins with the Decree on the restructuring of literary and artistic organizations (1932) and the introduction so-called method of socialist realism, perceived by critics as something absurd from an aesthetic point of view. However, some representatives of the emigration do not accept early Soviet literature for naturalism, coarse morals, and a manifestation of atheism. As typical negative features of Soviet literature, since the 1930s, are mentioned ideologization, artificially collisions, falseness and lies in the reflection of reality, canonicity and lack of creative freedom due to party dictates. At the same time, several writers stand out who were not affected by the general process of degradation of Russian literature in the USSR, those Yu. Olesha, K. Paustovsky, B. Pasternak are named. The work of B. Pilnyak, I. Babel, V. Kataev receives an ambiguous assessment.