Literay Fact Literay Fact 2541-8297 2542-2421 IWL RAS https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-8297-2025-35-246-267 Research Article and Publication of Archival Documents Articles Instructive Criticism: Sergei Dinamov and Sinclair Lewis Olga Yu. Panova editor@litfact.ru Pano Sergey I. editor@litfact.ru 2025 Sinclair Lewis Sergei Dinamov Soviet literary criticism American literature cultural activism political novel 20th century literary contacts Copyright © 2026, IWL RAS 2026 The paper concentrates on the reception of American Nobel prize winner Sinclair Lewis in Soviet literary criticism of the 1920s–1930s. The interpretation of Lewis’ work by a prominent Americanist, literary critic, Party functionary, and editor- in-chief of the International Literature magazine Sergei Dinamov is in the focus of attention. The article traces the publication history of Lewis’s political novel It Can’t Happen Here (1935) in the USSR, its editing, censoring, cutting and translating, as well as its critical analysis and evaluation. In his critical reviews and articles Dinamov sought to give the Soviet reader a “correct” and “up-to-date” interpretation of the novel, and tried, though unsuccessfully, to influence the author, convincing Lewis to reconsider the images of communists in his work. The paper is based on the publications in the 1930s Soviet press as well as archived materials — Dinamov’s correspondence with Lewis, Soviet readers’ reviews from the 1930s of the American writer’s novels, and a transcript of Dinamov’s 1936 lecture at the Institute of Red Professors, that contains a critical survey of Lewis’s work. 1. Dinamov, Zarubezhnaia literatura: sbornik statei [Foreign Literature: Collection of Articles]. Moscow, Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo khudozhestvennoi literatury Publ., 1960. 455 p. (In Russ.) 2. Krasavchenko, N. “Sinkler L’iuis i ego amerikanskaia antiutopiia ʽU nas eto nevozmozhno’.” [“Sinclair Lewis and His American Anti-utopia ʽIt Can’t Happen Here’.”] Sotsial’nye i gumanitarnye nauki. Otechestvennaia i zarubezhnaia literatura. Seriia 7: Literaturovedenie. Referativnyi zhurnal INION RAN, no. 1, 2020, pp. 89–100. (In Russ.) 3. Krivitskii, “U nikh eto est’! (Posleslovie, s kotorym est’ smysl oznakomit’sia do chteniia romana)” [“They Have It There! (Afterword to Be Acquainted with Before Reading the Novel)”]. L’iuis, S. Sobraniie sochinenii: v 9 t. [Collected Works: in 9 vols.], vol. 6: U nas eto nevozmozhno. Stat’i [It Can’t Happen Here. Articles]. Moscow, Pravda Publ., 1965, pp. 493–506. (In Russ.) 4. Kuzina, D. “ʽNovaia Rossiia’ i starye obidy: o literaturnom skandale vokrug sovetskih travelogov T. Drajzera i D. Tompson” [“ʽThe New Russia’ and the Old Offenses: The Scandal Around T. Dreiser’s and D. Thompson’s Soviet Travelogues”]. Studia litterarum, vol. 5, no. 4, 2020, pp. 146–165. https://doi.org/10.22455/2500-4247-2020-5-4-146-165 (In Russ.) 5. Libman, A. Amerikanskaia literatura v russkikh perevodakh i kritike. Bibliografiia. 1776–1975 [American Literature in Russian Translations and Criticism. Bibliography, 1776–1975]. Moscow, Nauka Publ., 1977. 452 p. (In Russ.) 6. Panov, I., and O.Yu. Panova. “Amerikanskie pisateli na Oktiabr'skikh torzhestvakh 1927 g.” [“American Writers at the October Revolution Celebrations, 1927”]. Novyi filologicheskii vestnik, no. 3 (46), 2018, pp. 174–184. (In Russ.) 7. Dunaway, David K. “Literature of American Fascism.” Literature of the Americas. Online version, Available at: https://litda.ru/images/online-2017/David_King_Danaway_Lit_of_America_Fascism_2017.pdf (Accessed 05 July 2024). (In English) 8. Forsythe, Robert. “The Land of Ours.” New Masses, June 16, 1936. (In English) 9. Hicks, “Sinclair Lewis — Anti-Fascist (Review of ʽIt Can’t Happen Here’).” New Masses, vol. XVII, no. 5, Oct. 29, 1935, pp. 22–23. (In English)