Between the battlefield and the marketplace: International Literature magazine in Britain

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe article discusses the Soviet literary magazine Internatsionalnaia literatura (International Literature) as a cultural institution, an important part of the intellectual and literary contacts of the Soviet culture of the 1930s in Britain. An organ of the International Union of Revolutionary Writers and later the Union of the Soviet Writers, the magazine sent its English version to Britain and was read by an audience close to the Communist party of Britain, while the magazine’s editors had vast correspondence with their British authors and readers. Taking into account a wide range of archival documents, the article explores the magazine’s distribution in Britain, the attitudes of British left-wing writers toward it and its place in the international literary market.