The Communist who undermined Communism: Aleksandr Tvardovskii in post-Stalin Russia

Speaker: Prof Geoffrey Hosking

As editor of the monthly journal Novyi mir (1950-54 & 1958-70) Aleksandr Tvardovskii  was a convinced communist (indeed a member of the CPSU Central Committee 1961-6) and also a believer in the virtues of 'socialist realism'. 

Yet his understanding of Soviet society and his interpretation of the role of literature within it led him gradually to take up a determined battle against the remnants of Stalinism and of their revival in the CPSU apparat.  He had the literary taste, the political skill and the determination to push through the publication of Solzhenitsyn's A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, the first exposé of the Stalinist labour camps.  His struggle is usually portrayed as one for 'liberalism' against 'dogmatism'.  But there was a third, complicating factor:  Russian nationalism.  Tvardovskii was and was not a Russian nationalist, and the legacy he left to Soviet and post-Soviet culture was an ambiguous one.

A seminar hosted by the UCL SSEES Russian Studies Seminar Series.
Convenors: Philippa Hetherington (UCL SSEES) and Simon Huxtable (Loughborough)