The Union of Soviet Writers, USSR Union of Writers, or Soviet Union of Writers (russian: Союз писателей СССР, translit=Soyuz Sovetstikh Pisatelei) was a
creative union of professional writers in the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
.
It was founded in 1934 on the initiative of the
Central Committee of the Communist Party
Central committee is the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, of both ruling and nonruling parties of former and existing socialist states. In such party organizations, the ...
(1932) after disbanding a number of other writers' organizations, including
Proletkult
Proletkult ( rus, Пролетку́льт, p=prəlʲɪtˈkulʲt), a portmanteau of the Russian words "proletarskaya kultura" (proletarian culture), was an experimental Soviet artistic institution that arose in conjunction with the Russian Revolut ...
and the
Russian Association of Proletarian Writers.
The aim of the Union was to achieve party and state control in the field of literature. For professional writers, membership of the Union became effectively obligatory, and non-members had much more limited opportunities for publication. The result was that exclusion from the Union meant a virtual ban on publication. However, the history of the Union of Writers also saw cases of voluntary self-exclusion from its cadre. Thus,
Vasily Aksenov,
Semyon Lipkin, and
Inna Lisnyanskaya left the Union of Writers in a show of solidarity after the exclusion of
Victor Yerofeev and
Yevgeny Popov in punishment for self-publishing.
Andrei Zhdanov
Andrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov ( rus, Андре́й Алекса́ндрович Жда́нов, p=ɐnˈdrej ɐlʲɪˈksandrəvʲɪtɕ ˈʐdanəf, links=yes; – 31 August 1948) was a Soviet politician and cultural ideologist. After World War ...
gave the opening address to the first Soviet Writers' Congress in August 1934, stating the "tendentious" purpose of literature as forming Marxist ideology in the minds of Soviets and illustrating the centrality of ideologically-pure literature to the Soviet and Stalinist project:
After the
end of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the So ...
, the Union of Soviet Writers was divided into separate organizations for each of the
post-Soviet states
The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad (russian: links=no, ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye), are the 15 sovereign states that wer ...
. The Russian section was transformed into the
Union of Russian Writers.
Chairmen
The post of chairman of the Union of Writers has been held by:
*
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (russian: link=no, Алексе́й Макси́мович Пешко́в; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (russian: Макси́м Го́рький, link=no), was a Russian writer and social ...
(1934–1936)
*
Vladimir Stavsky
Vladimir Petrovich Stavsky (Владимир Петрович Ставский; born Kirpichnikov, Кирпичников; 30 July 1900 – 14 November 1943) was a Soviet Russian writer, editor (in 1937–1941, of ''Novy Mir'') and literary admin ...
(1936–1938)
*
Alexander Fadeyev (1938–1944 and 1946–1954)
*
Nikolai Tikhonov (1944–1946)
*
Alexey Surkov (1954–1959)
*
Konstantin Fedin (1959–1977)
* Georgi Markov (1977–1986)
*
Vladimir Karpov (1986–1991)
Publication
From January 1946 to December 1990 the Union published a journal titled ''Soviet Literature Monthly''. The title was later shortened to ''Soviet Literature''. The journal published translations of Soviet literature. It was issued in English, French, German, Spanish, Hungarian, Polish, Czech, and Slovak editions.
See also
*
First Congress of Soviet Writers
The First Congress of Soviet Writers was an all-Union meeting of writers, held in Moscow from August 17 to September 1, 1934 , staged in August 1934, which led to founding othe Union of Soviet Writers.
It was staged soon after Comintern had swit ...
*
List of Russian-language writers
This is a list of authors who have written works of prose and poetry in the Russian language.
For separate lists by literary field:
* List of Russian-language novelists
* List of Russian-language playwrights
* List of Russian-language poets
...
References
External links
Spartacus Educational{{Authority control
Civic and political organizations based in the Soviet Union
Soviet literature
Socrealist literature
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
Arts organizations established in 1932
Organizations disestablished in 1992
1932 establishments in the Soviet Union
1992 disestablishments in Russia
Trade unions in the Soviet Union