Abstract
By the spring of 1987 the whole process of reassessing Stalinism was raised to a new plane by the publication of two formerly censored works by writers still living in the USSR — Anatolii Rybakov’s novel Children of the Arbat and Mikhail Shatrov’s play The Peace of Brest-Litovsk1 — which ventured beyond the more limited anti-Stalin works which had already appeared. The publication of these two works in March and April 1987 graphically demonstrated how in the Gorbachev era literature could be used to signal a change of policy. Since Gorbachev’s approval must have been required for the publication of these works, their appearance suggested that the new leadership was contemplating a more radical reappraisal of Soviet history than ever before, in order to prepare the way for far-reaching economic and political reforms.
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Notes and References
A. Rybakov, Deti Arbata, DN, nos 4–6 (1987).
A. Latsis, S raznykh tochek zreniya: ‘Deti Arbata’ Anatoliya Rybakova (M., 1990), p. 87.
E. Gessen, ‘Kommentarii k kommentariyam’, Strana i mir, no. 6 (1987), pp. 133–8;
B. Vail, ‘Stalynskoi ulybkoyu sogreta…’, RM (15 January 1988), pp. 10–11.
A. Latsis, Izvestiya (17 August 1987), p. 4.
N. Kuznetsova, RM (30 October 1987), p. 12.
Cf R. Conquest, The Great Terror: A Reassessment (London, 1992), pp. 37–52
A. Getty, Origins of the Great Purges (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 207–10.
A. Rybakov, interview with I. Rishina, LG (19 August 1987 ), p. 4;
A. Latsis, ‘S tochki zreniya sovremennika’, Izvestiya (17 August 1987), p. 4.
Letters from K. Sidorova, L. Strizhakova, LG (19 August 1987), p. 4; see also angry letter from R. Magomedov, Dagestan, LG (19 August 1987 ).
A. Turkov, LG (8 July 1987), p. 4;
L. Anninskii, S raznykh tochek, p. 32 praised Rybakov’s recreation of Stalin’s style of speaking and writing. S. Kunyaev, ‘Razmyshleniya na starom Arbate’, NS no. 7 (1988), pp. 26–7;
see also Kozhinov, S raznykh tochek, p. 153; a similar point is made about Soviet interpretations by Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956, vol. 1, transl. T. P. Whitney (Fontana, London, 1974), pp. 24–5.
Three of the most influential articles were V. Kozhinov, ‘Pravda i istina’; V. Selyunin. ‘Istold’, NM, no. 5 (1988), pp. 162–89;
V. Klyamkin, ‘Kakaya ulitsa vedet k khramu?’, NM no. II (1987), pp. 150–88. For a collection of comments on Stalin both by his contemporaries, and by Soviet and émigré writers and historians of the Gorbachev era, see Kh.Kobo (ed. and comp.), Osmyslit’ kul’t Stalina (M., 1989).
These included D. Volkogonov, Triumf i tragediya, Oktyabr, nos 10–12 (1988); (Volkogonov later became Yeltsin’s military adviser); R. Medvedev, O Staline i stalinizme, Znamya, nos 1–4 (1989);
S. Cohen, Bukharin: politicheskaya biografiya (M., 1989 );
R. Conquest, Bol’shoi terror, Neva, nos 9–12 (1989); nos 1–8 (1990).
Roy Medvedev’s On Stalin and Stalinism (1989), articles in the revitalized historical journal Voprosy istorii, and translations of works by foreign historians, such as S. Cohen, Bukharin: politicheskaya biografiya (M., 1989);
R. Conquest, Bol’shoi terror, Neva, nos 9–12 (1989); nos 1–8 (1990).
M. Shatrov, Brestskii mir, NM, no. 4 (1987).
For further discussion, see D. Joraysky, New York Review of Books (10 November 1988), pp. 34–9:
Marsh, Images of Dictatorship (London and NY, 1989), pp. 78–9;
A. Nove, Glasnost in Action (London, 1989), pp. 37–9.
F. Lastochkin, ‘Premiere: better to go further than nowhere’, Moscow News, no. 15 (1988).
Yu. Afanas’ev and M. Shatrov, ‘The Chime of History’, Moscow News, no. 45 (1987).
V. Gorbunov and V. Zhuravlev, ‘Chto my khotim uvidet’ v zerkale revolyutsii?’, SR (28 January 1988 );
G. Gerasimenko, O. Obichkin, B. Popov, all listed as. Popov, all listed as ‘doktor istoricheskikh nauk, professor’, ‘Nepodsudna tol’ko pravda: o p’ese M. Shatrova’, Pravda (15 February 1988 ).
D. Volkogonov, ‘Fenomen Stalina’, LG (9 December 1987 ).
Davies, op. cit., p. 140; V. Glagolev, Pravda (10 January 1988 );
Profs G. Gerasimenko and O. Obichkin, Pravda (15 February 1988 ).
Editorial comment, Pravda (15 February 1988).
N. Andreyeva, ‘Ne mogu postupat’sya printsipami’, Sovetskaya Rossiya (13 March 1988): see above, pp. 19–20.
H. Pearson, The Smith of Smiths (1934), chapter 3, p. 54.
For criticism of Rybakov, see A. Latynina, LG (14 December 1988), p. 4; M. Chudakova, LO no. 1 (1990);
M. Zolotonosov, Oktyabr, no. 4 (1991);
L. Bakhnov, DN, no. 12 (1990).
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© 1995 Rosalind Marsh
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Marsh, R. (1995). Two Key Writers: Shatrov and Rybakov. In: History and Literature in Contemporary Russia. St Antony’s Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230377790_5
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