EDITOR'S NOTE

Abstract

EDITOR'S NOTE Ifthe first tiny droplet oftruth hasexploded like a psychological bomb, what then willhappen inourcountry when whole waterfalls ofTruth burst forth? - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (1974) z o 2 1/1 < 00 -j < o o X o. Shortly in (b. 1991, 1946) after offered Russian thecollapse a author vivid of description the Yevgeni Soviet Popov Union ofthe in 1991,RussianauthorYevgeniPopov (b. 1946)offered a vividdescription ofthe cultural climate he and fellowwriters had lived through duringthepriorsevendecades:"Atthe very wordwriter a strange smile parted thecast-iron lipsofthat reinforced concrete structure calledthe USSR.. . . Thepatriarchal state ragedatitswriters; itdeprived them oftheir dailybread,itputthem in prisonsand psychiatric wards,it drovethem abroad, and,finally, itsimply killed them whenthey daredtostepbeyondtheboundsoftheshaman's circle drawnbytheCommunist Party" ("TheSilhouette ofTruth," WLT, Winter 1993). Writers inthe Soviet Union, according toPopov,hadlittle choice butto "cheerfully marchalongthehighway to a communism glistening likea polishedjackboot." Mindful of his illustrious predecessors who had livedthrough, butnotalwayssurvived, theSoviet era,Popovexpressed both elation attheprospect of hauling himself "outfrom under theruins" ofcommunism yetalso theburden ofhaving inherited a cultural landscape littered with catastrophe. Ofcourse, thejackboot ofcommunism didn't alwaysapply the same amountof pressureon thethroats of Sovietwriters. Periodsof relative freedom of expression - notably duringtheearly yearsof Communist rule(1922-29), in thethaw following thedeathofStalin (1953-63), andduring theglasnost era(1985-91) - marked brief reprieves from theconstant pressure oftotalitarian control. Indeed,duringthe 1920sand '30s,writers and artists throughout theworldsaw in theUtopiaof socialism a counternarrative to theinequalities of capitalist society anda bulwark against theriseof fascism. Yetmanyin theWestrefused tobelieve that thedream hadturned intoa nightmare bythe mid-i930s, so pervasive was their enthusiasm for theSoviet experiment - evenafter somesevenmillionpeasants diedduring thefamine causedbythe party's policies offorced collectivization (1932-33), whenovera thousandopponents of theregime wereshotevery dayduring Stalin's Great Purgeof i936-38, andasmillions more perished inthe camps ofthegulagsystem (1930-60). Evenin1935, following theworst yearsofthe famine, Andrew J. Steiger's article ontherevolution in Sovietpoetry, whichappearedin theSummer 1935issueofBooks Abroad (theprecursor ofWLT), readslikeparty propaganda. After beginning the article witha hagiographic eulogyto therecently deceasedpoetEduardBagritsky, theauthor idolizes "platform orators" who "roared, trumpeted, and disgorged" their poemson thesquare.Poetcomrades , likelumpen literati, wereobliged toplace their workinservice totherevolution: "During the periodofRevolutionary change . . . thepoethadto comeoutofhisstudy," Steiger writes. "People. . . wereonthestreets, they filed through thesquares with banners, they putmachine-guns onbarricades. . . . The Revolution forced thepoetsoutoftheir solitude, made themspokesmen of thepeople." Eventhough Bagritsky beganto covertly criticize theStalinist regime towardtheend ofhiscareer, nothing coulddiminish hisapotheosis inSteiger's eyes.Duringsomeofthedarkest decadesofthe Sovietera,thegrandnarrative had little tolerance for bothersome truths. Today,twenty yearsafter thefalloftheSoviet regime, a new generation ofwriters - Pelevin, Sorokin, Tolstaia, Ulitskaia, Shishkin, Bykov, and manyothers - is still navigating theruins ofSoviet history, even as it movesbeyondthatshattered legacy andoccupies itself withtwenty-first-century concerns. Forthewriters included inthisissue,the waterfall ofTruth, whichSolzhenitsyn envisioned cascading through thechasmsofRussianhistory, has dividedintoa thousand tributaries, and truth itself is no longer"roared,trumpeted, and disgorged " butrather continually refracted through the prismofthepast - and sometimes blindedbythe glare ofthepresent. AsYevgeni Popovwrote nearly twenty yearsago,"Thewriter alwayscomposes a falseand subjective picture ofreality, butwhatis anauthentic picture ifnotanaverage ofallthefalse ones?Therealiaoflife havenodistinct outline, and itisonly inthemultitude ofmutually exclusive representations , superimposed ononeanother, that the silhouette oftruth begins toshowthrough." While perhaps"falseand subjective," thesepictures of reality provide glimmers oftruth behind thecascade ofhistory. Editorial note: Special thanks toour contributing editor and colleague Emily Johnson, who proposed the idea for this special section nearly two years agoand whose guidance has been instrumental inputting it together. Her introductory note, which puts the remarkable changes of the past twenty years into perspective, begins the section proper onpage 32. NovemberDecember 201 113 ...