André Gide as a ‘friend of the Soviet Union’: Origins of the reputation

DOI:

https://www.doi.org/10.22455/2541-8297-2017-3-164-180
Issue:

2017 №3
Author: Natalia Kharitonova
About the author:

Natalia Kharitonova, PhD in Hispanic Studies, Researcher at the Department of Modern European and American Literature, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of Russian Academy of Sciences. Moscow, Russia.

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Abstract:

The article considers origins and genesis of André Gide’s reputation as a “friend of the Soviet Union.” In 1928 Soviet literary press took interest in Gide’s book Travels in the Congo, its author still being regarded as a bourgeois intellectual. Publication of Gide’s journal entries, interpreted as pro-Soviet, in June 1932 marked a border line in his perception both in France and in the USSR. Soviet press declared him a ‘friend of the Soviet Union’ and began to persistently cultivate this image. Opinions of French literary critics and intellectuals also relied on the assumption that Gide had become a follower of the Communist ideology. Russian immigration circles failed to understand Gide’s action. Thus, Dmitry Merezhkovsky wrote an open letter to Gide in the spirit of his own antibolshevist ideas where he accused European intellectuals of sympathizing with the Soviet regime.
Keywords: André Gide, USSR, writers’ reputation, Dmitry Merezhkovsky.
References:

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