Abstract
The paper is devoted to a parallel description of the literary processes in the Soviet Union and Soviet Latvia during Nikita Khrushchev’ reign, also known as the period of political thaw or the liberalisation of the communist regime (1953–1964). The main object of the research is the literary magazine Inostrannaja literatura (Иностранная литература), issued in the Soviet Union since 1955, dedicated to foreign literature and its translations; the principles of creating its content and structure during the political thaw period. The aim of the research: with concrete examples, to show the role of this legendary Russian literary periodical in the Iron Curtain period, expansion of freedom of thought, decanonization of socialist realism dogmas in general in the USSR, and also in the Latvian SSR. The methodological basis of the research consists of a comparative literature approach and a new historicism position that the literary text is important in studying different lines of history. The analysis of the publications clearly shows the replacement of the so-called periods of thaw and freezing. The article proves that the appearance of translations, reviews, previews, and research articles of foreign literature in this journal is closely connected with various political peripeteia of the USSR. In Latvia, there is a great resonance of Inostrannaja literatura, and it had an eventual influence on overcoming the dogmas of socialist realism in Latvian literature. The publications about the journal in Latvian literary editions and the study of the reception of one text example, a comparison of various editions of the writer Ēvalds Vilks’s (1923–1976) story “Twelve Kilometers”, prove it.
Published Version
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