“Seven Romantics Sailing Away.” Soviet Journalists on the First Cultural Exchange Visit to the US during the Khrushchev “Thaw”

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-8297-2023-29-293-322
EDN:

https://elibrary.ru/GDELSW
УДК / UDK: 821.111(73).0+821.161.1Р.0
Issue:

2023 №29
Author: Olga I. Shcherbinina
About the author:

Olga I. Shcherbinina — Junior Researcher, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25 a, 121069 Moscow, Russia; Lecturer, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, 82/2 Vernadskogo Pr., 119671 Moscow, Russia.

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2102-547X

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Abstract:

The article reconstructs the tour across the US made by seven Soviet newsmen in October–November, 1955. Headed by B. Polevoy, they arrived to study “the best of things in American life.” The delegates spent long hours in conversations with Arizona farmers, Mormons, Volga Molokans relocated to the US, Indians, etc. Although these ethnographic passages play a significant role in the travelogues written after the tour, the article focuses on the matters related to literary history, i. e. meetings of journalists with “progressive writers,” negotiations concerning pending royalties, discussion of Soviet literary production in the American market. To get the low-down of these processes, we turn to the confidential documents deposited in the Russian archives (RGALI and RGANI). The appendix to the article publishes delegation’s report on the trip sent to the Department of Propaganda and Agitation of the CPSU Central Committee.

Acknowledgements: The research was carried out at A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences with financial supported of the Russian Science Foundation, grant no. 23-18-00393 “Russia / USSR and the West Viewing Each Other: Literature in the Context of Culture and Politics in 20th Century” (https://rscf.ru/project/23-18-00393/).
Keywords: Soviet-American literary contacts, B. Polevoy, B. Izakov, N. Gribachev, travelogues, Cold War and the political Thaw, archival documents.
For citation:

Shcherbinina, O.I. “ʽSeven Romantics Sailing Away.’ Soviet Journalists on the First Cultural Exchange Visit to the US during the Khrushchev ʽThaw’.” Literaturnyi fakt, no. 3 (29), 2023, pp. 293–322. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-8297-2023-29-293-322
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