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Voronskij and VAPP

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 August 2018

Hugh McLean Jr.
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Extract

In a society whose leadership demands that all man's life and works be brought within the compass of a single Weltanschauung one would expect considerable attention to be devoted to the problem of art and its position in the social complex, for art, and in particular literature, is one of the most direct and effective means for influencing the political, social, and philosophical ideas and attitudes of the mass of individuals of which the society is composed. In post-revolutionary Russia the role art was to play in a society based on Marxian socialism at once became the subject of intense discussion, but fifteen years were to elapse before any final “official” solution of the problem was reached. It was not until 1932 that the formula of “socialist realism” received the endorsement of State and Party, whereupon its principles became incumbent upon the members of the various unions of writers, artists, and composers.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , October 1949 , pp. 185 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1949

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References

1 He published some critical essays under the title of “Literaturnye zametki” in Jismjti ztnja, No. 56, 1911, under the pseudonym of Nurmin

2 Voronskij, A. K., “O federacii sovetskikh pisatelej,” Krasnaja nov', No. 4 (April, 1927), p. 216.Google Scholar

3 Gusev performed a rather remarkable feat of verbal juggling to produce this conclusion. Voronskij had used the term “builders of socialism” in antithesis to the “new bourgeoisie,” the Nepmen and kulaks. Gusev argued that if this term referred to both peasants and proletarians, it was a symptom of Chernovism, since the peasants are not “builders of socialism,” but must be led by the proletariat. If it referred to the proletariat alone, it was a sign of Trotskyism, since it disregards the peasantry! Cf. Gusev, S. I., “Kakaja federacija pisatelej nam nužna?” Pravda, No. 96 (April 30, 1927), p. 5.Google Scholar

4 Ibid.

5 Voronskij, “Ob užasnom krokodile, o federacii pisatelij, i o falšivykh frazakh,“ Krasnaja nov' No. 6 (June, 1927), pp. 238-49.

6 About 1930 he was permitted to return to Moscow, recanted his errors, and was readmitted to the Party. The years 1930-34 he spent editing editions of the classics and writing a biography of Željabov, the Populist leader of the 1880s. This biography appeared in 1934 and seems to be Voronskij's last published work. I am informed by private correspondence from Mr. Rodion Berezov, a former associate of Voronskij in the literary group Pereval and now a displaced person in Austria, that Voronskij “disappeared” in 1937.

7 Voronskij, , Literaturnye zapisi (Moscow, 1926), p. 11.Google Scholar

8 Voronskij, , “Iskusstvo kak poznanie žizni i sovremennost',” Krasnaja nov\ No. 5 (July-August, 1923), p. 349.Google Scholar

9 Voronskij, , Ob iskusstve (Moscow, 1925), p. 7 Google Scholar.

10 Voronskij, , Literaturnye zapisi, p. 18 Google Scholar.

11 Tolstoy, Leo, Anna Karenina, Constance Garnett, trans. (New York, 1939), p. 561.Google Scholar Italics mine. I have changed the phrase “stripping off the wrappings” (snjatie pokrovov) to “removing the veils” to make it conform to my own rendering in other parts of this article.

12 Voronskij, , Ob iskusstve, p. 18 Google Scholar.

13 Ibid., p. 10.

14 Ibid.

15 Quoted in Literaturnaja enciklopedija (Moscow, 1929), II, 316.

16 Ibid

17 Voronskij, , Ob iskusstve, pp. 16–17 Google Scholar.

18 Voronskij, , “Iskusstvo kak poznanie …,” p. 365.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., p. 362. Italics mine.

20 Voronskij, , Ob iskusswe, p. 25.Google Scholar.

21 Voronskij, , “O proletarskom iskusstve i khudožestvennoj politike našej partii,” Kramaja nov', No. 7 (November-December, 1923), p. 257.Google Scholar

22 Ibid., p. 258.

23 Ibid., p. 267.

24 Trotsky, Leon, Literature and Re-volution (New York, 1925), pp. 185-86Google Scholar.

25 Voronskij, “O proletarskom iskusstve …,” p. 269. Italics mine.

26 Voronskij, , “O politike partii v khudožestvennoj literature,” Voprosy kul'tury pri diktstture proletariata (Moscow-Leningrad, 1925), p. 56.Google Scholar

27 Ibid., p. 58.

28 lbid., pp. 61-62.

29 Voronskij, , “O ‘tekuščem momente’ i zadačakh RKP(b) v khudožestvennoj literature,” Proletariat i literatura, Sbornik state (Leningrad, 1925), p. 52.Google Scholar

30 Lelevič, G., pseud. (Laborij Gilelevič Kal'manson) “Naši literaturnye raznoglasija,” Proletariat i literatura, p. 81.Google Scholar

31 Ibid., p. 87.

32 Cf. Voronskij, , “Polemičeskie zametki,” Proletariat i literatura, p. 138 Google Scholar; also Literaturnye zapisi, p. 14.

33 Voronskij, “Iskusstvo kak poznanie …,” pp. 363-64.

34 Majskij, Ivan, “O kul'ture, literature, i kommunističeskoj partii,” Proletariat literatura, p. 65 Google Scholar footnote.

35 Voronskij, “Polemičeskie zametki,” p. 140.

36 Majskij, , “Eščë raz o kul'ture, literature, i kommunističeskoj partii,” Proletariat i literatura, p. 195.Google Scholar

37 Voronskij, “Polemičeskie zametki,” p. 139.

38 Majskij, “Eščë raz o kul'ture …,” pp. 194-95.

39 Averbakh, Leopold, Naši literaturnye raznoglasija (Leningrad, 1927), p. 24.Google Scholar

40 Ibid., p. 25.

41 Ibid., p. 26.

42 Ibid., p. 73.