S.I. Vavilov — Reader of Soviet Literature

Abstract

The article analyzes the diary records of the outstanding Soviet physicist, Academician and President of the USSR Academy of Sciences Sergei Ivanovich Vavilov (1891—1951), dedicated to his reader’s perception of contemporary Soviet literature. Widely-read S.I. Vavilov collected his private library of 37 thousand volumes; he regularly visited bookstores, mainly antiquarian and second-hand bookshops. Despite the prevailing interest to the old books, S.I. Vavilov knew Soviet literature, used its images in his popular science works (S.A. Yesenin) and diary characteristics (I. Ilf and E. Petrov). The few diary entries with the assessments of the works of Soviet writers (A.N. Tolstoy, A.E. Korneychuk, K.I. Chukovsky, A. Bely, A.K. Vinogradov, V.V. Veresaev, M.A. Bulgakov, etc.) most commonly demonstrate critical attitude to them. It was defined by both his classical aesthetic preferences, formed in his youth on the material of Russian literature of the 19th century, and by his unflattering attitude to the Soviet reality, which Academician did not show publicly, allowing just certain statements in his private diaries. The generally negative perception of Soviet literature indicates that, contrary to the claims of some researchers, S.I. Vavilov was not a Stalinist and was quite sceptical of the socialist reality.