Proletarian Writers Research Articles

Avant-gardism in Bruno Jasieński’s Socialist GrotesquerieThe Mannequin Ball

The remarkable output of Bruno Jasienski (1901-1939) bilingual prose writer, poet, dramatist, whose personal life and literary œuvre in both Russian and Polish were formed by divergent, often conflicting social and cultural traditions stands until today unevaluated in terms of the intrinsic continuity of his writing. Jasienski is acknowledged for his substantial contributions both to the Polish Futurist and the Soviet Socialist Realist literatures.1 Yet, because of the seemingly antinomic features of his works, he has generally been viewed by literary scholars in an exclusivist way: either as one of the most individualistic and innovative figures of Polish Futurism during the 1920s, or as an ideologically orthodox proletarian writer ready to serve the cultural policies of his second homeland, the Soviet Union, during the 1930s. Although he was both calumniated and lionized by the public and literary establishments in Poland, France and the Soviet Union, Jasienski remains diminished in his significance due to an incomplete assessment of his poetics. Viewed either as a flamboyant Futurist or a dogmatic Socialist Realist, he is a writer whose work as a whole has not received its due exegesis in tenus of the stylistic and historical avant-garde principles that inform it. The present paper is premised on the belief that Jasienski's writing offers insight into the relationship between the realm of belles lettres and political society, more specifically, the way ideological beliefs about the contemporary human condition aie conveyed through the postulation of fictional worlds by the only art form that is purely propositional imaginative literature. At the heart of the matter is the need to go beyond the outdated positivistic interpretation of Jasieriski that sees him as a writer who eventually compromised his art in the name of ideology, a categorical view rooted in Platonic idealism which persists in liberal Polish circles today.2 Polish scholars have produced important and absorbing studies of Jasienski's early period but have been intellectually abashed in treating his Soviet period, seeing it as both the personal and literary martyrdom of a writer who succumbed to a well-intentioned but ill-placed ideological loyalty to Marxism a fate common to leading intellectuals between

Autonomous Theater and the Origins of Socialist Realism: The 1932 Olympiad of Autonomous Art

In August 1932 over one hundred theatrical, choral and orchestral circles from throughout the Soviet Union met in Moscow to display their work to a distinguished panel of judges and an enthusiastic audience. This was the first national competition of local amateur and semiprofessional cultural groups, which had been sent by unions, factories, houses of culture, and clubs. Intended to emphasize the cultural achievements of the Soviet proletariat and to celebrate the triumphant conclusion of the First Five-Year Plan, the Olympiad of Autonomous Art ended up with a much more complicated and contested meaning. Coming as it did fresh in the wake of the Communist Party's abolition of national proletarian cultural organizations in April 1932, the olympiad forced both participants and critics to consider how independent local circles would fit into a cultural system that placed more emphasis on centralization and professionalization, namely, the evolving system of socialist realism. At the time of the olympiad, socialist realism was hardly a well-developed concept. The term first came into official use in May 1932, but its meaning remained unclear at least until the First Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934.1 Eventually the artistic unions that took shape provided excellent mechanisms for state control over the arts. Initially, however, many artists viewed official intervention into the highly politicized cultural climate of the First Five-Year Plan with some relief. Not only had the Communist Party interceded to end the oppressive dominance of groups like the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP), it had also announced greater concern for artistic quality and professional standards. Indeed, the government's stated aim was to create a new, professional art worthy of international respect.2

The Need for Cross-Ethnic Studies: A Manifesto (With Antipasto)

1 Why has Willard become a forgotten man of American literature? His first novel, Knock on Any Door, appeared in 1947. A Chicago novel in naturalistic tradition of Dreiser, Farrell, and Wright, Knock on Any Door tells story of Nick Romano, altar boy at twelve...dead in electric chair at twenty-one.[1] I It was an instant success. According to Robert E. Fleming, in only book-length study of to date, Two weeks after publication, Knock on Any Door sold forty-seven thousand copies; after two years, Appleton-Century reported three hundred fifty thousand copies in print 61). In 1949, Knock on Any Door was made into a film staring Humphrey Bogart and John Derek. By time of its seventeenth paperback printing, novel could boast sales of 1,500,000 books. Motley's second novel, We Fished All Night, published in 1951, did not fare nearly so well. The critical consensus was that had spread himself too thin (Fleming, Motley 118). We Fished All Night is indeed a sprawling, panoramic novel, not unlike Dos Passos's U.S.A in its attempt to explore all aspects of life in a post-war America. By concentrating on three characters rather than a single protagonist, as done in his first novel, was able to write a novel that, as a document of times, recommends itself in several ways: as one of few American war novels to emphasize life of returning soldier; as a brilliant and detailed picture of machine politics in Big City (again Chicago); as a discussion of post-War labor union agitation and Communism; as a depiction of plight of minorities; and as a portrait of frustrated artist. It may be true, as Fleming observes, that he taken up too many themes and thus done justice to none (Motley 118), and novel is structurally flawed in many ways, but We Fished All Night nevertheless remains a novel waiting to be rediscovered. Despite limited success of this novel, author of a reference book on American writers could state as late as 1953 that possessed a household name (Hughes 197). was to publish only two more novels. Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1958) is a sequel to Knock on Any Door. It records lives of Nick Romano's illegitimate son and younger brother following his execution. The novel expands Motley's view of corrupting influences of modern city, evident in naturalistic tone of his first novel, by including a frank discussion of drug abuse. Let No Man Write My Epitaph, while not nearly smash of Knock on Any Door, was successful enough to be filmed, with a cast that included James Darren, Shelley Winters, Burl Ives, and Ella Fitzgerald. Motley's final novel, published posthumously as Let Noon Be Fair in 1966, takes place in Motley's adopted home, and portrays the adverse effects America [has] on Mexico, ways in which the United States is exploiting Mexico both economically and culturally (Fleming, Motley 120). Let Noon Be Fair clearly shows Motley's desire to be a committed novelist, and while it thus looks back to his roots in proletarian writers of thirties,[2] it also looks far forward to a concern for welfare of third world that is still growing today. So why do these books go unread and unexamined? It could be because is often a clumsy writer. Much of criticism leveled at loose construction of We Fished All Night is fury warranted, but then U.S.A. can hardly be called a tightly-knit work. It could also be because Motley, to his detriment, honed his style as well as his disposition on works of Dreiser, Farren, and Wright. It could also be because seems to have arrived after his proper time period, or because all four of his novels are massive volumes, thick with documentary, almost scientific, detail. I believe, however, that there is another, more deeply seated reason why Willard is neglected, why has not received recognition that deserves. …

Introduction

This issue of Soviet Studies in Literature focuses on the development of critical approaches to children's literature in the second half of the prewar period. The vigorous debate over the nature and aims of children's literature in the Soviet Union reached a climax in 1929-30, at the peak of the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers' interference in literature. After the official dissolution of all competing literary groups and the establishment of a single organization, the Writers' Union, in 1932, critical attention to children's literature became less emotional and intellectually more rigorous. Having secured the artistic legitimacy of this literature and the important place in it of imagination and fantasy, its advocates emphasized the importance of children's books of high quality.

Might-Have-Beens: The North and the Nobel Prize, 1967-1987

bel Prize symposium of twenty years ago,1 Richard B. Vowles reflected on twelve awards that had been made to authors from North since establishment of prize: Bj0rnstjerne Bj0rnson (1903), Selrna Lagerlof (1909), Verner von Heidenstam (1916), Karl Gjellerup and Henrik Pontoppidan (1917, a shared prize whose genesis Knut Ahnlund has analyzed in a brilliant essay),2 Knut Hamsun (1920), Sigrid Undset (1928), Erik Axel Karlfeldt (1931, single instance of a posthumous award), Frans Eemil Sillanpaa (1939, with award's air of being a gesture of support to Finland, about to be attacked by Russia in Winter War), Johannes V. Jensen (1944, a belated sign of recognition to Danish author, born in 1873 and very near end of his career), Par Lagerkvist (1951), and Halldor Kiljan Laxness (1955). There is no need to mention vagaries, real and apparent, of these prize-givings once more; omission of Ibsen and Strindberg has been subjected to more than sufficient comment, while case of Georg Brandes often a bridesmaid with an immoral reputation but never a bride has been treated, at last, by Carl Fehrman;3 concluding his essay, Fehrman notes that, in Brandes's instance, die absence of both a regular professorship in Denmark and Nobel Prize constitutes highest distinction Brandes was too great a man for such honors, which had often gone to mediocrities. Viewed by our contemporary eyes, record of Scandinavian prizes is in truth not particularly impressive: we should agree that Hamsun certainly was deserving (if not necessarily for Marhens gr0de (1917; Eng. Growth of Soil), but in every other case, opinions might be mixed. Lagerlof, Undset, Pontoppidan, Jensen, and Laxness still have their special pleaders, and Americans in particular have been hypnotized by Lagerkvist's mysteries, or mystifications, although some perspicacious readers remain skeptical. The awards to Heidenstam and Karlfeldt smack a little of Swedish local patriotism, and latter gift as well might have been made by Swedish Academy to a degree for good and faithful service. All winners, to be sure, even unreadable Gjellerup, appeared to meet at second, idealistic part of Alfred Nobel's much-debated and murky requirement of finding author who has produced the most distinguished work of an ideal tendency.4 The national distribution of prizes during years from 1901 to 1967 merits some passing attention: Sweden got four, Norway three, Denmark two shared awards and one fall, Iceland one, and Finland one a probably unintentional symmetry which reflected literary centrality of three core Nordic countries and peripheralism of two new republics, Atlantic saga island and sometime czarist Grand Duchy. (A kind of addendum can be made to totting-up: Nelly Sachs, writing in German but resident in Sweden, shared 1966 prize with Samuel Agnon.) The absence of Scandinavian (or Nordic) names from Nobel table of honor during last two decades does elicit concerned thoughts. The sole Scandinavian appearance, exception proving non-Nordic rule, has been as everyone knows shared prize of 1974 to Sweden's Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson. The award had something of air of Jensen prize (of just thirty years before) about it, a farewell salute to two literary careers winding down: Johnson was born in 1900 and survived until 1976; Martinson was born in 1904, dying in 1978. The works of both surely have an ideal tendency: novels of Johnson pondering fate (not least political fate) of man, Martinson incorporating ambiguities of man's freedom in his feckless tramps and also penning excruciatingly germane epic Aniara (1956) about a spaceship that leaves a doomed earth, itself doomed to wander until its own death in space. The double award was thus as readily defensible as those made to such more obvious idealists as Bj0rnson and Lagerlof and Undset, although idealism of 1974 winners had a darker hue, with good cause: Johnson had seen depredations of totalitarianism close up; Martinson rightly and frighteningly predicted horrors to be wrought by technology. It is interesting to wonder too how much award to Johnson and Martinson was a bow in direction of democratization of Swedish life not least intellectual life in 1960s, when a proletarian background became, more than ever before, a literary merit. In his presentation speech Karl Ragnar Gierow made a great deal of extremely simple beginnings of both authors, reaching a rhetorical climax with a special claim: Both Eyvind Johnson and still more Harry Martinson have a lot in common with oldest and perhaps greatest of all proletarian writers . . . Aesop.

Cain's Craft , and: Something More Than Night: The Case of Raymond Chandler , and: Ross Macdonald , and: Private Eyes: 101 Knights—A Survey of American Detective Fiction 1922-1984 , and: Murder in the Millions: Erle Stanley Gardner, Mickey Spillane, and Ian Fleming (review)

Reviewed by: Cain's Craft, and: Something More Than Night: The Case of Raymond Chandler, and: Ross Macdonald, and: Private Eyes: 101 Knights—A Survey of American Detective Fiction 1922-1984, and: Murder in the Millions: Erle Stanley Gardner, Mickey Spillane, and Ian Fleming Larry D. Harred David Madden . Cain's Craft. Metuchen: Scarecrow, 1985. 176 pp. $15.00. Peter Wolfe . Something More Than Night: The Case of Raymond Chandler. Bowling Green: Bowling Green U Popular P, 1985. 242 pp. $21.95 cloth; pb. $10.95. Matthew J. Bruccoli . Ross Macdonald. San Diego: Harcourt, 1984. 147 pp. $14.95 cloth; pb. $7.95. Robert A. Baker and Michael T. Nietzel . Private Eyes: 101 Knights—A Survey of American Detective Fiction 1922-1984. Bowling Green: Bowling Green State U Popular P, 1985. 385 pp. $29.95 cloth; pb. $17.95. J. Kenneth Van Dover . Murder in the Millions: Erle Stanley Gardner, Mickey Spillane, and Ian Fleming. New York: Ungar, 1984. 248 pp. $12.95 cloth; pb. $7.95. One of the questions that this review mercifully will noLhave to answer is "why should serious critics study or even admit to reading popular fiction?" The impact of new schools of criticism has combined with broadened areas of study in the profession to generate a great deal of interest in genres formerly ignored or derided. And more importantly, critics using a variety of approaches are producing interesting, provocative studies of writers who wrote in neglected genres. The five works listed above are evidence of the interest in detective or crime fiction; they illustrate a range of possible approaches. Cain's Craft, by David Madden, is a collection of loosely connected essays about James M. Cain, a tough-guy writer of the Thirties. The author's intention is to demonstrate his "interest in Cain as it developed through related interests from 1960 to 1984." Cain's work is examined in six different sections: his relationship to tough-guy and proletarian writers, his career as a writer of popular fiction, his writing for the movies and the movie adaptations of his, novels, his novels as "pure" novels, his possible influences on European fiction, and the aesthetics of popular fiction. Despite this announced framework Madden really has two methods of critical analysis. The first, illustrated by three of the essays, focuses on some aspect of Cain's writing career; sections two, three, and four (as listed above) provide interesting discussions of the period and Cain's novels. But the sections remain separate essays, lacking overt connection and an overarching thesis. Madden's second critical approach is to compare a Cain novel with one or more works that exemplify a genre. Three essays (sections one, five, and six) feature comparative analyses of The Postman Always Rings Twice with Horace McCoy's They Shoot Horses, Don't They? and B. Traven's The Death Ship; The Postman widi Camus's The Stranger; and Serenade with Wright Morris' Love among the Cannibals. In the last two essays listed, Madden describes the similarities and connections among the works. In both cases, Cain suffers in comparison with Camus and Morris. A troubling thought occurs—why compare Cain to superior writers when the comparison always works to Cain's detriment? Madden most often admits that Cain's treatment of similar situations or themes is not as effective or impressive as the other writers'. On the whole, neither essay aids in understanding the power that Madden claims for Cain. In the first essay of the collection, a discussion of three novels of the Thirties, Madden's knowledge of Cain's work allows him to show Cain to best advantage. His reading of the three novels draws several striking parallels of characterization, style, and world view that exemplify the tough-edged presentation of life common to writers such as Cain, McCoy, and Traven. Although this essay does explain something of Cain's "craft," the [End Page 370] collection as a whole seems incomplete. Madden never explains the reasons for Cain's popularity and power as a writer. On the other hand, Peter Wolfe's Something More Than Night: The Case of Raymond Chandler never wavers from its focus. And it is that devotion to...

The Image of Stalin in Soviet Russian Folklore

as the Golden era of folklore scholarship in the Soviet Union, for during these years, folklore, like literature, was a field of scholarly endeavor relatively free from direct government interference.1 The 1925 edict by the Central Committee of the Party allowed the free competition of various groups and currents, and in this atmosphere Formalist scholars as well as followers of the historical and Finnish schools made valuable contributions to the study of Russian folklore.2 But at the beginning of the first five-year plan in 1929, when the publication of literature was put under the control of RAPP (Russian Association of Proletarian Writers), folklore became the subject of much debate and criticism. Both RAPP and its predecessor PROLETKULT (Proletarian Cultural and Educational Organizations) maintained that folklore was harmful to the Soviet people.3 Adherents of the PROLETKULT called for the eradication of all aspects of folklore and even created a children's PROLETKULT which sought to abolish folktales.4 In criticizing the ideological backwardness of folklore, RAPP branded it a harmful survival of the past which should not be cultivated as art.5 Other groups such as LEF (Left Front of Art), KOMFUT (Communist Futurists), and the followers of Pereversev felt that folklore was the mediocre re-

The Many Voices of Vladimir Voinovich

The Many Voices of Vladimir Voinovich By Dragan Milivojevic* The fate of most outstanding Russian writers both in Tsarist and Soviet Russia has been perilous when their artistic endeavors followed their social and philosophical commitments. Solzhenitsyn's strident clamor for freedom and his subsequent repression was followed by Voinovich's satirical portrayal of totalitarian society on behalf of sanity and common sense. Both writers suffered social ostracism, and both were exiled from their homeland. In a peculiar way, their fates were interwoven as Voinovich stood up to defend Solzhenitsyn's right to artistic freedom and thereby caused his own downfall and exile. Vladimir Voinovich, a dissident Russian writer who is now residing in the United States, was born in the Tadzhik Republic in Stalinabad (now changed to Dushanbe) in 1932. His social and educational background are atypical for a Soviet writer. He worked as a cabinet maker and carpenter among other manual occupations, completing only five years ofthe ten-year gymnasium. His father was a journalist with literary ambitions, and his mother was a teacher. His literary career resembles that of Maxim Gorky and proletarian writers in the twenties for whom life was their only school. His entry into Soviet literature was quite different from that of other writers of his own generation; Yevtushenko, Voznesensky, Aksyonov, Kuznetsov, and others who were graduates from the Gorky Literary Institute and other institutions of higher learning. Twice he applied for acceptance to the Gorky Literary Institute, and twice he was rejected. After coming back from the Eastern regions ofthe Soviet Union and settling in Moscow he studied without much enthusiasm at the Moscow Pedagogical Institute for a year and a half. His life seemed to have led nowhere until 1961 when he wrote a patriotic poem, "March of the Cosmonauts"1 which became an overnight success and almost an official anthem of the Soviet space flight program. This poem brought him fame and recognition. •DRAGAN MILIVOJEVIC is a Professor of Russian inthe Department ofModern Languages and Literature at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. ' Also named. "Fourteen Minutes Until the Start." According to Voinovich the poem was written in fourteen minutes. "Incident at the Metropole." Kontinent, Number 2. 1977. p. 27. ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW55 Dragan Milivojevic Immediately afterwards, Voinovich gave up poetry permanently and turned to prose with his story "My zdes' zhivyom" ("We Live Here"), published in "Novy mir," 1961, No. 1, and followed by "Khochu byt' chestnym" ("I Want To Be Honest"), published in the literaryjournal "Novy mir," No. 2, 1963. The time was auspicious since it was a liberal period in Soviet letters. Foreign writers such as Hemingway, Faulkner, Dos Passos, Salinger, and Remarque were being translated into Russian. Tvardovsky was at that time the liberal editor of "Novy mir," and Khrushchev announced that the party would not interfere in the arts. Although "Khochu byt' chestnym" was written completely in the spirit of socialist realism, indicating certain imperfections in the Soviet society while maintaining that they could be corrected, the official reaction was negative. It was severely attacked by Illichev, Khrushchev's advisor, and Voinovich was reduced to a five-year silence. In 1967 his short novel, Dva tovarishcha2 (Two Friends) appeared. The official reaction to this work, unlike the previous story, was positive, and a promising career for him as a writer appeared to be assured. Few people knew at that time that Voinovich had started, already in 1963, his novel, The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin. The pendulum in the Soviet literature had, in the meantime, swung again to the right with the arrest ofwriters Sinyavsky and Daniel in September, 1 965. Whatever illusions the liberal writers had about the continuation of liberalization in Soviet literature were now shattered. Voinovich's literary career was at that time upset by several incidents: his signature on behalf ofthe two arrested writers during their trial in 1966, and the circulation of Chonkin in Samizdat, that is to say, in typewritten copies of the novel circulating from hand to hand. His story ("By Way of Private Correspondence") also appeared in Samizdat.3 Finally, both works appeared in the West (In 'Tamizdat'—being published abroad). The first chapter of Chonkin...

The Many Voices of Vladimir Voinovich

The fate of most outstanding Russian writers both in Tsarist and Soviet Russia has been perilous when their artistic endeavors followed their social and philosophical commitments. Solzhenitsyn's strident clamor for freedom and his subsequent repression was followed by Voinovich's satirical portrayal of totalitarian society on behalf of sanity and common sense. Both writers suffered social ostracism, and both were exiled from their homeland. In a peculiar way, their fates were interwoven as Voinovich stood up to defend Solzhenitsyn's right to artistic freedom and thereby caused his own downfall and exile. Vladimir Voinovich, a dissident Russian writer who is now residing in the United States, was born in the Tadzhik Republic in Stalinabad (now changed to Dushanbe) in 1932. His social and educational background are atypical for a Soviet writer. He worked as a cabinet maker and carpenter among other manual occupations, completing only five years of the ten-year gymnasium. His father was a journalist with literary ambitions, and his mother was a teacher. His literary career resembles that of Maxim Gorky and proletarian writers in the twenties for whom life was their only school. His entry into Soviet literature was quite different from that of other writers of his own generation; Yevtushenko, Voznesensky, Aksyonov, Kuznetsov, and others who were graduates from the Gorky Literary Institute and other institutions of higher learning. Twice he applied for acceptance to the Gorky Literary Institute, and twice he was rejected. After coming back from the Eastern regions of the Soviet Union and settling in Moscow he studied without much enthusiasm at the Moscow Pedagogical Institute for a year and a half. His life seemed to have led nowhere until 1961 when he wrote a patriotic poem, March of the Cosmonauts' which became an overnight success and almost an official anthem of the Soviet space flight program. This poem brought him fame and recognition.

Russian Futurism in the Late 1920's: Literature of Fact

During the late 1920's the Russian Futurists, in an alliance with the Russian Formalists, were involved in a literary controversy with the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP). This controversy, which concerned the nature and direction of Soviet Russian literature, is of considerable historical importance, but has not been given the attention that it deserves. This paper seeks to describe, explain, and interpret the Futurists' and Formalists' theory of of as it was ranged against RAPP's literary theories and to place the controversy in historical perspective. The controversy arose partly as a result of the Party resolution on literature in 1925. On the one hand, its aim was to check the raging literary disputes of the immediately preceding years and to reject attempts to commit the Party to the program of any one literary group for the moment: Everything compels the assumption that a style corresponding to the epoch will be created, but it will be created by different methods, and the solution of this problem has not yet begun. Any attempt to bind the Party in this direction in the present phase of the country's cultural development must be rejected.' On the other hand, the Party specifically committed itself to the future creation of the hegemony of literature.2 This implied that the Party in the immediate future would abandon its policy of free competition of various groups and tendencies and impose a proletarian ideology on all writers. Furthermore the Party called upon literature to take part in socialist construction. The Futurists and Formalists considered the writer as a craftsman whose product was not unlike the products of other workers. They wanted the writer to work for journals, newspapers, and factories, to write sketches, diaries, reports and memoirs-in short, to write a literature of fact which they believed far more directly reflected the problems and events of the day than literature. They believed that the imaginative literature which RAPP advocated would not only take years to develop and write, but was an intrinsically solitary art form that alienated the writer from the task of building socialism and from what Boris Kusiner (1888-1937) called direct and immediate participation in political and cultural work.

SOME PROBLEMS OF CULTURAL RELATIONS OF THE USA AND THE USSR (THE 1920S THE FIRST HALF OF THE 1930S)

The article discusses some problems of cultural relations between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1920s the first half of the 1930s, the Authors outline the features of cultural relations of the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1920s-1930s, attention was drawn to the order of admission of foreigners through the activities of the Soviet Union («Intourist», All-Russian public organization for cultural relations with foreign countries, Russian Association of proletarian writers) and foreign organizations and agencies («Open Road»). It is noted that the main task of these organizations and agencies has become the establishment, development and strengthening of cultural ties between the two countries, including through «special» admission of foreign nationals. Also, the article identifies the main directions of the activities of Soviet and foreign organizations and agencies: cooperation with foreign societies of friendship with the Soviet Union and national societies, working with foreign scientists to explore with the Soviet system of healthcare and the development of scientific relations, partnership with tourist agencies for the exchange of professionals. Based on the analysis of foreign sources shows the negative and positive results in the indoctrination of American intellectuals with the aim of creating a positive image of the Soviet state. In conclusion, the work concludes unequal interest of the two States against each other, theSoviet Unionin the establishment of cultural relations differed selectivity.

Proletarian Writers of the Thirties.

Proletarian Writers of the Thirties.

A Review Essay

PROLETARIAN WRITERS OF THE THIRTIES. Edited by David Madden with a Preface by Harry T. Moore.