Dear Stan,
just a little "headnote" - the fact that Stalin named the whole city
for Gorky didn't stop (very probably) Gorky to be murdered by an
order of Stalin, or, more likely, with Stalin's consent or hint. Murder
at this time didn't contradict praise. (Nabokov probably would be
murdered without...)
All the best
Sergei Soloviev
> Adding to Victor Fet¹s comment on the Soviet¹s brutal attack on artistic
> freedom and creativity, I see a new book on the subject reviewed by
> Wendell
> Steavenson in the latest Sunday Times: ENGINEERS OF THE SOUL, In the
> Footsteps of Stalin¹s Writers, by Frank Westerman (Harvill Secker, £14.99
> pp
> 306.)
>
> Westerman reminds us of the romantic novel under Soviet Socialist Realism:
> Boy meets Girl, Girl meets Tractor.
> He tells of Akhmatova reduced to writing poems in praise of Stalin to try
> and get her son released from the camps.
> And who dare blame her for that? ³Stalin corralled the liriki to match the
> efforts of the fisiki, to serve the breakneck industriaiization of the
> 1930s.² ³If workers can pour concrete in brigades, why can¹t brigades of
> writers produce a collective book?² (M Gorky)
>
> The reviewer warns us not to expect a comprehensive study on Soviet
> Literature (a well-ploughed field). Rather, Westerman seeks new ground,
> covering lesser-known writers, especially the hangers-on¹ who suffered
> but
> survived.
>
> Carolyn asks: Has anyone ever speculated, by the way, as to what kind of
> soviet writer Nabokov would have made?
> The quick answer is a MURDERED Soviet writer, like Mandelstam and Babel.
>
> The gruesome tale of Stalin coaxing Maxim Gorky back to the CCCP offers
> scant food for further speculation. Gorky succumbed and was richly
> rewarded
> for becoming ³Godfather of the subversion of literature to the efficacies
> of
> the Five-Year Plan!²
>
> But, a huge BUT, to even THINK of that happening to the exiled Vladimir
> Nabokov is UNTHINKABLE! Still, just imagine: Stalin naming a whole city
> for
> Nabokov, an honour Uncle Joe bestowed on the obsequious Gorky in 1932 (it
> reverted to Nizhny Novgorod in 1991).
>
> Stan Kelly-Bootle