Vol 83, No 3 (2024)

The Federation of Soviet Writers’ Associations (FOSP) is examined for the first time from the perspective of the sociology of the literary process. The traditional historical and literary question of who created the FOSP and why is replaced here by a more significant problem from the point of view of the literary process: why did the FOSP emerge in the conditions of competition on the market of literary production, who needed the FOSP most in the conditions of the market economy, and, finally, whether there was any prospect of the FOSP continuing to function after 1932. It is shown that the FOSP and its institutions, first and foremost the Federation publishing house, were the legitimate product of the NEP era and served the strategic goals of the Proletarian Union of Soviet Writers. Since the “genetic code” of the FOSP, like that of the Proletarian Association, belonged to the NEP era, the Federation had no chance of taking root in the economic and political conditions of the 1930s.

On April 16, 1938 Upton Sinclair sent a letter to the editors of the Soviet magazine International Literature, in which he shared the idea of a new novel Red Gold and asked to find him a co-author among Soviet writers. In his letter U. Sinclair gave a detailed synopsis of the novel: the plot was to be based on the story of a young American engineer who in the mid-1920s goes to Siberia to provide Soviet gold mining with the American technology. There on the banks of the river Lena he meets a Russian Bolshevik girl and they fall in love. As an American “bourgeois specialist” he used to believe that capitalism is the most effective social and economic system; his belief, however, was shaken in the course of ideological disputes with his girl-friend, and the Great Depression of the 1930s increased his doubts. Soviet partners proposed Piotr Pavlenko as co-author, and the writers began to exchange letters, discussing their future work and various details of the planned novel. The project was supervised by the Foreign Commission of the Soviet Writers’ Union; its functionaries reported to party and government organs (the Central Committee of the Communist Party, the Peopleʼs Commissariat of Foreign Affairs). Letters signed by Pavlenko were read, edited and approved at several levels of Soviet bureaucracy, from the Writersʼ Union to the Press Department of the Central Party Committee. Thus, Upton Sinclair, in fact, negotiated and argued not just with his co-author, but with a hierarchial administrative body with a strict chain of command. Due to the obvious discrepancy between his own and Soviet attitudes, Sinclair soon decided to abandon the idea of a “collective novel”. The study is based on the materials from the funds of the Russian State Archive of Arts and Literature (RGALI).

The article focuses on the phenomenon known as “retelling”. The mass reader, both domestic and foreign, perceives retelling as one of the neterature genres. The word “retelling” is borrowed from the English language. According to the English-language publications concerning retelling, in modern mass consciousness this concept corresponds, on the one hand, to the methods of borrowing and processing plots, known in European culture since antiquity, on the other, to a system of primary and secondary features, reproduced in mass literature texts. However, neither American nor British literary criticism knows such a genre. Foreign literary critics use the term “adaptation”, which implies one type of the text transformation: from a literary work to a theatrical production or film. Russian researchers apply the term “adaptation” to the alterations of classical literature for theatre, cinema, television and computer games. Although in the English language culture retelling is perceived as a new, recently emerged phenomenon, the first authorʼs adaptations of classical works appeared at the beginning of the 19^th century. The collection of stories “Tales from Shakespeare”, written by Charles and Mary Lamb can be considered the first example of a “retelling” adaptation. The “Preface” to the stories contains the principles, formulated by the authors. According to the given principles they reworked Shakespeareʼs plays for childrenʼs reading. These principles fall under both the concept of “retelling” and the concept of “adaptation”. The research shows that though “retelling” is perceived as one of the characteristic features of modern culture, this phenomenon existed as a conscious way of creative working with text for at least two centuries. This phenomenon is not a genre, but a set of techniques for transforming a text, a still insufficiently studied universal of literary creativity.

The article presents a pilot study of the Valencian game poem “Scachs dʼAmor” (1475), the stanzas of which and the patterns of moves of a real chess game are parallel, since three poets composed its text at the same time as two of them (Franci de Castellvi and Narcís Vinyoles) played, and the third (priest Fenollar) judged the indicated game and determined new rules for the game. The main innovation of the game was that the queen, emblematically representing the power of the glorified Isabella of Castile, moved for the first time as it moves now. The subject of the study is the lexical and phraseological structure of the monument, and the main method is the statistical method, which is used to determine the frequency of expression of semantic motives in the speech of each of the three co-authors, their attraction to certain artistic themes. As a result, it becomes possible to describe the life experience and sociocultural interests of poets hidden behind linguistic formulas. The categorical study of speech material is preceded by a description of the activities of the Valencian poetic circle in the last quarter of the 15^th century.

The article examines Soviet-French literary contacts in the socio-political aspect on the basis of two unknown and not introduced into scientific circulation letters from the Archive of A.M. Gorky: a letter of five French writers dated June 28, 1932 A.M. Gorky and a letter from V. Serge dated September 28, 1932 to Gorky’s secretary P.P. Kryuchkov. French writers of leftist views (J.-R. Bloch, C. Vildrac, J. Guéhenno, L. Werth, F. Jourdain), who sympathized with the USSR, turned to Gorky with a request to help Serge leave the USSR. A month later, V. Serge himself turned to Kryuchkov with a request to respond to this letter. The son of Narodnaya Volya emigrants, Serge came to Soviet Russia in 1919 to participate in the revolutionary transformations of society and promote the world revolution. Sergeʼs connections with the anti-Stalinist opposition led to persecution by the GPU, two arrests (in 1928 and 1932) and exile to Orenburg for three years (in 1933). Thanks to an international campaign in the French and Belgian press launched by left-wing intellectuals, Serge left the USSR in April 1936. The still unknown first letter in his defense, sent by French writers to Gorky, is the most important evidence of the political strategies of leftist writers of the 1930s, attempts to influence socio-political processes within the leftist movement, as well as attempts to humanize the Stalinist regime.

The article is devoted to the motif of journey in the poetry of swedish author of the second half of 19^th century Viktor Rydberg (1828–1895). The way has been considered as a metaphor in mythological and folklore texts, and the motif of journey is one of the most common motifs in world literature. It has a special significance for Romanticists, in whose texts the journey symbolizes the process of individual spiritual quest. The similar approach to the metaphorisation of the path is characteristic of Rydberg’s works: the influence of Romantic tradition can be traced in them. The works of swedish poet with the motif of journey and hero-wanderer in the center were analyzed in the article. The role of the motif of journey in the formation of the spiritual apperanance of characters was revealed.

The article attempts to talk about that part of the scholarly heritage of the literary historian, textual critic, teacher N.K. Gudziy, which is dedicated to the work of the poet, prose writer, literary critic, translator, public figure V.Ya. Bryusov. Based on unpublished archival materials, printed works, materials from Gudziy’s personal archive and correspondence, the scholar’s contribution to the development of domestic “Bruce studies” is characterized, and the main circumstances that influenced the formation of his reading and research interest in this topic are identified. In addition, the background to the birth of Gudziy’s main scholarly works, dedicated to Bryusov and the early stage of the formation of Russian symbolism, is presented, and the scholar’s active work at the 2nd Moscow State University, the State Academy of Artistic Sciences, and the “Circle in Memory of Valery Bryusov” is considered from the point of view of the researcher’s movement towards chosen topic and object of critical interest. The presented materials allow us to trace the fate of several research subjects – the history of early Russian symbolism, Bryusov’s youthful creativity, the change of his creative and critical interests, the role of the literary environment in the poet's life – from their birth and systematization of archival materials to printed embodiment.