Zoya Boguslavskaya’s Worlds

Abstract

The article is devoted to the initial stage of activity of the famous writer, critic, literary critic Zoya Boguslavskaya (up to her marriage to the poet Andrei Voznesensky). The work uses unique, previously unpublished materials from Boguslavska’s archives: manuscripts, documents and letters. Boguslavskaya’s early literary activities include three writers: Vera Panova, Leonid Leonov, and Alexander Korneychuk. The first significant work of Boguslavskaya is related to the study of the productions of Korneychuk’s plays in Moscow theaters, followed by a book on the works of writer Leonid Leonov and, in 1963, a book on the works of Panova. In the initial period Boguslavskaya acts as a literary, theatrical and film critic. She was published in the major periodicals of the time: Literaturnaya Gazeta, Sovetskaya Kultura, Literatura i Zhizn’, Ogonyok, and other newspapers and magazines. The article deals with her interaction with cultural figures of the mid-twentieth century. Her formation as a writer is studied. Important formal milestones in the life of Boguslavskaya were defending her PhD thesis in 1952 and joining the Union of Soviet Writers in 1960. Her activity at the initial stage is multifaceted and finds recognition both in the writing community and among readers. By the mid-1960s, her formation as a writer was completed, and her own style and manner of writing was formed. The crown of the initial stage in Boguslavskaya’s work is a book about the writer Panova, and the poet Voznesensky appears in Boguslavskaya’s life.