Please join us at the upcoming Soviet Literature as a Network: Institutions, Languages, People panel at the ASEEES Convention in Chicago.

The panel takes place this Friday, November 11, at 4:15-6:00 pm.

The goal of this panel is to examine in what manner and degree social connections, networks, factionalism and other uniting and divisive principles were constructive for Soviet and international socialist literature in the second half of the 20th century. How were Soviet literary groups formed? What role do personal friendships and animosities play in the construction, promotion, and denunciation of literary values in the Soviet literary field as well as in world literature? How did successful networking help Soviet books and their authors to gain prominence inside the country and abroad and what were the strategies of this networking process? What impact did the cultural institutions and cultural gatekeepers such as educational institutions, publishing houses, literary journals, and literary prizes have on the establishment and stabilization of various networks in Soviet literature? In what manner were nationality, language, and place of origin constitutive for the Soviet literary networks? These are the questions which shape this panel.

Papers:

  • Erin Hutchinson, University of Colorado Boulder, “Literary Networks and the Development of Nationalism and Internationalism in the USSR”
  • Ararat Sekeryan, Columbia University in the City of New York, “The Poetics and Politics of the ‘Soviet Brotherhood’: Armenians and Azerbaijanis in Mirza Ibrahimov’s Кəлəчəк Кун (1949)”
  • Olga Nechaeva, University of Pennsylvania, “Networks, Coalitions, and Factions at the Gorky Literary Institute: a Digital Humanities Analysis”

Unfortunately, Katerina Clark who was originally a part of our panel is unable to attend.

Chair: Peter Budrin

Discussant: Philip Gleissner

See you there!