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It is a Shame not to Know the Language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Earl W. Jennison Jr.
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Extract

The heart and soul of a society is often much more fully revealed in its imaginative literature than in such self-conscious statements as political manifestos or constitutions. It is this soul-baring quality of imaginative literature which explains, even if it does not justify, the primacy in Soviet literary criticism of political and ideological concerns over such factors as psychological honesty and aesthetic efficacy. The neglect of the transpolitical, transideological subtleties of literary art makes Soviet literary criticism seem very mechanical and heavy-handed to most non-Marxists. Of course this kind of critical analysis is not inappropriate to some of the hack work generated under the rubric of “socialist realism.” However, Western critics are often equally ideological in their own way, even towards Soviet literature of intrinsic artistic merit. Indeed, this essay itself runs the risk of abusing art by subjecting a charming little Soviet story, “Instructress Asta,” to political analysis.

Type
Research Article
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , Autumn 1974 , pp. 76 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the Study of Nationalities, 1974 

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References

Notes

1 Skulsky, Grigori, “Uchitel'nitsa Asta,” in Ekho (Moscow: Progress Publishers, n. d.), pp. 28–31.Google Scholar

2 For example, see “National Relations in Socialist Society,” in Moscow News, April 11, 1970.Google Scholar

3 Quoted from an article by Dr. M. Džunusova, “About Some Actual USSR Nationality Questions,” in Darbulaužu internacionāla audzinašana (Riga: Liesma, 1967), as cited in Estonian Events, December 1971, p. 6.Google Scholar

4 “The Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Draft), 1961,” in The Communist Blueprint for the Future, Intro, by Thomas P. Whitney (New York: Dutton, 1962), p. 203.Google Scholar

5 Ibid., p. 205.Google Scholar

6 E. Glyn Lewis, Multinationalism in the Soviet Union: Aspects of Language Policy and its Implementation (The Hague: Mouton, 1972), p. 44, table 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Quoted from Kodumaa, May 17, 1972, p. 4, in Baltic Events, October 1973, p. 3.Google Scholar

8 Private communication to the editors, Baltic Events, October 1973, p. 3.Google Scholar