Literary Critic Elena Usievich in Disputes over Political Poetry (1937)

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the life and work of the Soviet literary critic Elena Felixovna Usievich (1893–1968), one of the key figures in the literary process of the 1930s. The special focus of the study is Usievich’s support for disgraced writers, such as A. P. Platonov and P. N. Vasiliev. The main attention is paid to the campaign of persecution against Usievich in 1937, initiated by a group of poets led by A. A. Surkov in response to the critic’s article “On the Disputes about Political Poetry”. In addition, it examines the history of publication for Usievich’s collection of articles “The Ways of Artistic Truth” and its role in the critic’s rehabilitation. The work analyzes the mechanisms of literary struggle, denunciations and public discrediting among writers in the 1930s, as well as survival strategies in the face of ideological pressure. Based on archival materials, the press, and memoirs, it is shown how, thanks to personal integrity and collegial solidarity (in particular, on the part of the journal “Literary Critic”) Usievich managed to avoid repression and restore her reputation. The trajectory of Usievich’s critical career illustrates the transformations of the Soviet writer’s environment during the Great Terror. The study of Usievich’s creative and personal biography allows us to restore a number of social connections; in addition, against this background, the role of institutional support is clearly visible in Soviet literature of the Stalin period.