Literary Group “Kuznitsa”: History, Aesthetic Platform, Artistic Practice

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Abstract:
The article is devoted to the first period of existence of the literary group “Kuznitsa” (1920–1923), connected, on the one hand, with the formation of its aesthetic and creative face, and on the other — with the desire of the “blacksmiths” to take a leading position not just in the leadership of proletarian literature, but also in its institutional design. Relying on archival sources, periodicals of the 1920s, magazines and collective collections of the group, as well as lifetime publications and publications of members of the “Kuznitsa”, the history of the group’s emergence, the formation of its aesthetic platform, milestones of the struggle for leadership in proletarian literature is presented. The article proves that the path of the “Kuznitsa” in 1920–1923 ran between institutionality and authorial identity. It is shown that the real poetic practice of the members of the “Kuznitsa”, the individual development of its leading poets, who set the tone for the group, who were its leaders and occupied a key position in the VAPP, went beyond institutional settings, and the principle of “imaginative thinking” declared by the “Kuznitsa” gave scope to creative freedom. Poets were widely oriented towards the poetics of Russian symbolism, introduced elements of literary play and friendly dialogue into their works, and in their work, despite the declared task of building a new “proletarian culture”, the motives of Novokrestyan poetry were widely heard, attention to the Russian classics, to eternal themes and images increased. The causes of the crisis in the “Kuznitsa”, which ended with the release in 1923 of the group of its leading figures — V.T. Kirillov, M.P. Gerasimov, V.D. Alexandrovsky, are considered.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.22455/CM.2949-0510-2024-5-307-366
EDN:
https://elibrary.ru/GJGTLV
Author: Anastasia G. Gacheva
About the author: Anastasia G. Gacheva, DSc in Philology, Leading Research Fellow, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya St., 25A, bld. 1, 121069 Moscow, Russia. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5453-0881 Е-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Received: February 9, 2024
Date of Publication: May 15, 2024
Approved after reviewing : December 12, 2024
Publication Type: Research Article
For citation: Gacheva, A.G. “Literary Group ‘Kuznitsa’: History, Aesthetic Platform, Artistic Practice.” Codex manuscriptus, issue 5. Moscow, IWL RAS Publ., 2024, pp. 307–366. (In Russian) https://doi.org/10.22455/CM.2949-0510-2024-5-307-366
Keywords: literary group “Kuznitsa”, proletarian literature, aesthetic platform, artistic practice, imaginative thinking, cosmism, projectivism.

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