Hegemony of Brotherhood: The Birth of the Soviet Multinational Literature, 1922

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Abstract:
The article is devoted to the history of the formation of Soviet mul- tinational literature, which, although traditionally associated in domestic and Western traditions with 1934 and the First Congress of the Soviet Writers, in fact appeared back in the “roaring twenties”. The main driving force behind the multi- national literary project, as one of the leading components of the creation of a uni- fied Soviet nation, was the party nomenklatura. The chapter examines the features of interaction between leaders of literary groups in the 1920s. in republics where literary discussions were a form of intra-factional struggle. In addition, both in Moscow and in the republics, the leaders of literary groups were not so much writ- ers as functionaries active in literature. On this party basis, the “fraternity of literatures” was formed, the organizing center of which in the USSR became the VAPP. Brought up on the hierarchical principle of democratic centralism, party functionaries from VAPP / RAPP were hostile to nationalism and strove for an imperial (anti-nationalist, and therefore internationalist) model. With the creation of the VOAP and the subsequent increase in the number of “fraternal literatures,” their institutional strength rapidly declined. Using archival materials, this article reconstructs the mechanisms of work in relation to national literatures — the incompetent, purely bureaucratic leadership of the RAPP, ignorance regarding national literatures, etc. Organizational structures became a product of imperial engineering, RAPP’s discourse on literature with its pseudo-class party rhetoric and repressive criticism successfully extended to the entire cultural space of the multinational country. Later, the institutional practices and experience of “consolidation” of national literatures created by the RAPP leaders were transferred to the Union of Soviet Writers.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22455/CM.2949-0510-2024-5-15-128
EDN:
https://elibrary.ru/GWYXOF
Author: Evgeniy A. Dobrenko
About the author: Evgeniy A. Dobrenko, PhD in Philology, Università Ca’ Foscari de Venèsia (UNIVE), Dorsoduro 3246, Calle Larga Foscari, 30123, Venetia, Italy. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4039-4967 E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Received: January 22, 2024
Date of Publication: May 6, 2024
Approved after reviewing : December 12, 2024
Publication Type: Research Article
For citation: Dobrenko, E.A. “Hegemony of Brotherhood: The Birth of the So- viet Multinational Literature, 1922–1932.” Codex manuscriptus, issue 5. Moscow, IWL RAS Publ., 2024, pp. 15–128. (In Russian) https://doi.org/10.22455/CM.2949-0510-2024-5-15-128
Keywords: RAPP, VAPP, national literature, the literary process of the 1930s, politics and literature.

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Hegemony of Brotherhood: The Birth of the Soviet Multinational Literature, 1922–1932