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Reed Grachev and the Leningrad literary environment of the 1960s

E.I. Kolesnikova
$2.50

UDC 82-94

https://doi.org/10.20339/PhS.4-22.153   

 

Kolesnikova Elena I.,

Doctor of Philology,

Leading Researcher of the Modern Literature Department

Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Pushkin House)

e-mail: ekolesn@mail.ru

 

The article details episodes in the life of Reed Grachev (R.I. Vite), a writer who was famous in the 1960s but is now nearly forgotten. Drawing on materials from Saint Petersburg archives, it describes the process by which Grachev was inducted into the Writers’ Union of the USSR. It analyzes reasons for the increased social role of that organization in the Soviet period, and also its influence on the fate of one individual. It describes Grachev’s attitudes toward creative work and the writer’s vocation. It proposes an explanation for the rejection of his work by official critics and for the scarce number of books he was able to publish during his lifetime. It prints for the first time recommendations by V.F. Panova, F.A. Abramov, and G.M. Fridlender, supporting Grachev’s application to the Writers’ Union, as well as his autobiographical statement, social and professional evaluations, and relevant excerpts from meetings of the union’s Leningrad chapter. It considers his relationships with J. Brodsky, A. Bitov, and other representatives of the Leningrad intelligentsia of the 1960s. The author suggests that these new materials from the life of Reed Grachev meaningfully enrich scholarly understandings of Soviet literary processes in the 1960s.

Keywords: Reed Grachev, Union of Writers of the USSR, Fyodor Abramov, Vera Panova, Georgy Friedlender.

 

References

 

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