The Diaristic Form and Subjectivity under Khrushchev

Abstract

At the start of the post-Stalin period, writers and literary critics began to embrace the diaristic form as never before in Soviet history. In this article, I explore the gravitation toward this and other short and documentary genres. I foreground the subject of literary form, which has, I maintain, for too long remained in the background of scholarship on Soviet literature. The rise of a new privileged form was related dialogically to the emergence of a new normative subjectivity–one that called on citizens to engage in meticulous empirical investigations of Soviet life and to arrive at and advance their own critical conclusions about Soviet reality. In advancing these arguments, I revise the interpretations of Soviet literary history that have highlighted the significance of the novel, contributing to a growing body of scholarship on the history of Soviet subjectivity.