Russian émigré life in France as covered by Soviet literary magazines of the first half of the 1920s

Abstract

The authors consider the problem in which extent did the Bolshevik authorities allow a coverage of Russian émigré life and work in France, under conditions of ideological confrontation and censorship. The present study is based on materials of Soviet literary and socio-political magazines such as Book and Revolution and Krasnaya Nov’ of the fi rst half of the 1920s. These journals off ered chronicles of events, literary reviews, information in special sections (‘In the West,’ ‘Relations with Russia,’ ‘Russian literature and art abroad,’ and particularly in the section ‘France’) that off ered a fairly complete picture of cultural events in France and activities of Russian émigrés in the country. Characteristic was the reproduction of large fragments of works authored by emigrant authors, which acquainted readers with the development of emigrant thought of that time. The article concludes that with regard to the fi rst half of the 1920s, we can speak about a kind of dialogue between the Russian intelligentsia in France and that in Soviet Russia. This communication was not always politicized and often remained in the fi eld of literature and art theory. In those years the cultural life of France in general was subject of constant attention. It is argued that most publications on French literature and art were free from ideology, thereby continuing the tradition of pre-revolutionary cultural relations between the two countries.