DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-8297-2024-32-341-361 

EDN:

https://elibrary.ru/JEIJKO 

УДК / UDK: 82.091
Publication Type: Research Article and Publication of Archival Documents
Issue:

2024. no. 2 (32) 

Author: Shcherbinina, O.I.
About the author:

Olga I. Shcherbinina, Junior Researcher, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya St., 25А, 121069 Moscow, Russia; Lecturer, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), Vernadsky Ave., 82/2, 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. 

Funding Sources:

The research was carried out at A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences with the financial support from the Russian Science Fundation, grant no. 23-18-00393 “Russia and the West Viewing Each Other: Literature at the Intersection of Culture and Politics, 20th Century” (https://rscf.ru/project/23-18-00393/).

Abstract:

The article reconstructs the literary contacts of the American writer and publicist Phillip Bonosky (1916–2013) with the USSR. When the US Communist Party reached its crisis point in 1956, Bonosky did not renege on his political commitments to the USSR, having established himself as a devoted communist and “defender of the foundations.” Based on archival materials deposited in RGALI, we demonstrate that such a pro-Soviet position promised the writer personal preferences, which he enjoyed with pleasure. Bonosky visited the USSR many times — both workwise and with cultural and entertainment visits. On many occasions, he tried using his acquaintances and pulled a few strings when it came to speeding up the publication of his works in Russian and receiving royalties for them. However, as a writer of short stories and “proletarian” novels, Bonosky enjoyed great success neither in the USSR nor in the USA: his writings remained a marginal phenomenon and were hardly perceived as a significant cultural value in the Khrushchev thaw era, despite the declared interest of Soviet critics in works about the life and struggle of American workers. 

Keywords: Soviet-American literary contacts, Phillip Bonosky, the Third Congress of Soviet Writers, the Cold War and the Thaw, archival documents.
For citation:

Shcherbinina, O.I. “ʽA Trusted Ally’: Phillip Bonosky’s Soviet Contacts.” Literaturnyi fakt, no. 2 (32), 2024, pp. 341–361. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-8297-2024-32-341-361 

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