Alexandrova Vera. A History of Soviet Literature 1917-1962: From Gorky to Yevtushenko

Transl. by Mirra Ginsburg. — Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1963. — 369 p.The account of Russian literature since 1917 is, in a sense, the history of the artistic and emotional life of the Russian people. This literature may be considered a “common monument” — like Mayakovsky’s “socialism, ” “built in battles. ” For the attempt of Soviet writers to express themselves in all forms of the written word was indeed like a “battle” with the Soviet government, in which the writer risked his self-respect and his life — occasionally losing both. And the poets, novelists, short story writers, humorists, and essayists of this period were “all of a kind, ” for each, in his different way, and in his particular metier, was trying to capture the images he saw and to express the sentiments he felt. They all strove, in varying degrees, to realize the great nationalistic literature which that most energetic of literary chauvinists, Maxim Gorky, envisioned. The history of this enterprise — which began with the Russian Revolution of 1917, perhaps the most far-reaching political event of the twentieth century — is the history of many noble attempts, several notable successes, and a few significant tragic failures. It is, above all, an incomparably absorbing story.A History of Soviet Literature contains many diverse themes: of nationalistic aspiration (Gorky); of disillusionment and despair (Mayakovsky and Yesenin, suicides both); of eloquence and disavowed triumph (Pasternak); of deft adaptability (Ehrenburg); and of youthful candour (Yevtushenko). It examines closely the development and meaning of the post-Stalin phase which Ehrenburg has characterized as “The Thaw”; and it considers the work of the new writers, Nagibin, Kazakov, and the now-famous Yevtushenko. Finally, in her Epilogue, the author considers the spectacular appearance of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s novel, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Vera Alexandrova, born in Russia, was editor of the Chekhov Publishing House in New York and has contributed articles on Soviet literature to The New Leader, The Saturday Review, as well as to foreign-language periodicals.From Pre-Revolutionary to Soviet Literature
Literary Developments: From the Revolution to World War II (1917-39)
Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930)
Sergey Yesenin (1893-1923)
Yevgeny Zamyatin (1884-1937)
Mikhail Zoshchenko (1893-1938)
Ilya Ehrenburg (1891- )
Isaac Babel (1894-1941)
Boris Pilnyak (1894- ?)
Boris Pasternak (1890-1960)
Yury Olesha (1899-1960)
Leonid Leonov (1899- )
Mikhail Prishvin (1873-1934)
Alexey Tolstoy (1883-1943)
Mikhail Sholokhov (1903- )
Literary Developments: World War II and After (1939-62)
Konstantin Paustovsky (1892- )
Vera Panova (1903- )
Alexander Tvardovsky (1910- )
Valentin Ovechkin (1904- )
Victor Nekrasov (1910- )
Vladimir Dudintsev (1918- )
Three Young Writers: Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Yury Nagibin, Yury KazakovEpilogue