The Union of Soviet Writers, USSR Union of Writers, or Soviet Union of Writers () was a
creative union of professional writers in the
Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
.
It was founded in 1934 on the initiative of the
Central Committee of the Communist Party (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 Revol ...
and the
Russian Association of Proletarian Writers
The Russian Association of Proletarian Writers, also known under its transliterated abbreviation RAPP () was an official creative union in the Soviet Union established in January 1925. and both pro and anti-Bolshevik writers were targeted, notab ...
.
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 Aksyonov,
Semyon Lipkin, and
Inna Lisnyanskaya left the Union of Writers in a show of solidarity after the exclusion of
Viktor Yerofeyev and
Yevgeny Popov in punishment for self-publishing.
Andrei Zhdanov
Andrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov ( rus, Андрей Александрович Жданов, p=ɐnˈdrʲej ɐlʲɪkˈsandrəvʲɪdʑ ˈʐdanəf, a=Ru-Андрей Жданов.ogg, links=yes; – 31 August 1948) was a Soviet politician. He was ...
gave the opening address to the
First Congress of Soviet Writers 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 Union of Soviet Writers was divided into separate organizations for each of the
post-Soviet states
The post-Soviet states, also referred to as the former Soviet Union or the former Soviet republics, are the independent sovereign states that emerged/re-emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Prior to their independence, they ...
. 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 (; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (; ), was a Russian and Soviet writer and proponent of socialism. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Before his success as an aut ...
(1934–1936)
*
Vladimir Stavsky (1936–1938)
*
Alexander Fadeyev (1938–1944 and 1946–1954)
*
Nikolai Tikhonov
Nikolai Aleksandrovich Tikhonov ( – 1 June 1997) was a Soviet Russian-Ukrainian statesman during the Cold War. He served as Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1980 to 1985, and as a First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, ...
(1944–1946)
*
Alexey Surkov (1954–1959)
*
Konstantin Fedin
Konstantin Aleksandrovich Fedin ( rus, Константи́н Алекса́ндрович Фе́дин, p=kənstɐnʲˈtʲin ɐlʲɪkˈsandrəvʲɪtɕ ˈfʲedʲɪn, a=Konstantin Alyeksandrovich Fyedin.ru.vorb.oga; – 15 July 1977) was a Sovie ...
(1959–1977)
*
Georgi Markov
Georgi Ivanov Markov ( ; 1 March 1929 – 11 September 1978) was a Bulgarian dissident writer. He originally worked as a novelist, screenwriter and playwright in his native country, the People's Republic of Bulgaria, until his defection in 196 ...
(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
*
List of Russian-language writers
References
External links
Spartacus Educational{{Authority control
Civic and political organizations based in the Soviet Union
Soviet literature
Socrealist literature
Arts organizations established in 1932
Organizations disestablished in 1992
1932 establishments in the Soviet Union
1992 disestablishments in Russia
Creative unions in the Soviet Union