Representatives Of Emigration Research Articles

Рецензия на книгу «“К Вам с письмом советский читатель...”: письма читателей М.А. Шолохову: 1956–1984» (отв. ред. Н.В. Корниенко. М.: ИМЛИ РАН, 2022. 1120 с.)

The second volume of the peer-reviewed edition completes the project of publishing readers’ letters to Mikhail Sholokhov. The texts prepared by the compilers represent one of the largest collections of readers’ correspondence to the writer (1,162 letters). Most of the letters are in the personal archive of Sholokhov’s family. The phenomenon of fan mail developed in Russia in the early 1870s. It became particularly widespread in the Soviet period due to a number of cultural initiatives in the early years of Soviet power. Letters to Sholokhov appear not so much as signs of his reputation, but as material for the study of the Soviet reader and his era. This is especially evident in the letters included in the second volume: they were written from 1956 until the end of the writer’s life. At this time, people wrote to Sholokhov not only the writer, but also the deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Materials from different years clarify the general cultural, political and literary context of these letters. The compilers distinguished groups of letters to Sholokhov by subject matter: letters from readers of the USSR, foreign readers, and representatives of emigration; letters from novice writers; letters to Sholokhov as a public figure; letters from participants in World War II; letters from prisoners; and requests for material assistance. The main topics include requests to send books, autographs, photographs, to tell about the fate of heroes (primarily Grigory Melekhov); appeals for help in solving private and public problems; complaints about the lack of books in libraries, bookstores and at private sellers. Chronologically and compositionally, the letters caused by Sholokhov’s speech at the 20th Congress of the CPSU on the problems of literary creativity and the work of the Writers’ Union are singled out. The awarding of the Nobel Prize to Sholokhov in 1965 caused a reaction of readers. Letters with negative reviews either did not survive in the archives or were not included in the edition. In general, the letters to Sholokhov appear as a subject of general interest of the humanities in collecting, preserving, and publishing documents that reflect the perception of contemporaries of an event or phenomenon. They could become the material for history of reading in Russia. For this purpose, at the first stage, it is necessary to create digital copies of the letters, do their markup and statistical processing according to the main parameters: the letter’s author, date, address, and topic. The next stage could be the correlation of the results obtained with data on letters to other writers. A thematic index could be the first step in this direction and, at the same time, a help in using the existing edition. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

Пропагандистська конкуренція товариства «Просвіта» та Общества имени А. Духновича за русинську аудиторію Підкарпатської Русі у міжвоєнний період

This article analyzes the informational activity of two societies – “Prosvita” (Eng. Enlightenment) and The A. Dukhnovych Society among Rusinian population of Subcarpathian Rus using modern approaches to the propaganda analysis, which implies answering the questions of who, whom on, what methods and forms are used. In particular, it has been found out that both societies had similar structures, with their members being representatives of intelligentsia with Ukrainophile and Russophile views respectively. They were also joined by the representatives of emigration and local population. The Rusinian audience had a relatively low educational level, and many residents of Subcarpathian Rus could not make up their minds whether they were of Rusinian ethnicity and what religion they practiced. The main forms of informing were printed press, oral transmission and radio broadcasting. Most often, the societies used polygraphic means of propaganda, since they were the easiest to produce. Oral transmission also proved quite productive, since it did not require significant expenditures. Radio was of limited application due to lack of receiving equipment. The author’s perspective of the propaganda methods has been formed through the analysis of individual episodes, informational and visual materials about the social and political life of Carpathian Rus and the activities of “Prosvita” and The A. Dukhnovich Society. Among the most popular methods were persuasion, suggestion, manipulation, and disinformation. However, it is possible to speak about their application only conditionally, since there was no propaganda technique in its modern understanding. The representatives of the societies under analsysis acted out of their personal understanding of campaigning methods and responding to the information needs of the Rusin community.