Literature Between Stalin and Gorbachev

I. The Thaw (1953-1963)

A. Increased Literary Freedom

1. Ilya Erenburg's The Thaw (1954)
2. Vladimir Dudintsev's Not by Bread Alone (1956)
3. Alexander Yashin's "Levers" (1956)
4. Alexander Solzhenitsyn

a) One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962)
b) "Matryona's House" (1963)

5. Vladimir Tedryakov's "Potholes" (1963)
6. Younger Generation

a) Vladimir Voinovich
b) Vasilii Aksenov
c) Fazil Iskander
d) Andrei Bitov
e) Irina Grekova

7. Extremely popular young poets

a) Yevtushenko

i) "Babi Yar" (1961)
ii) "Heirs of Stalin" (1962)

b) Akhmadulina
c) Voznesensky

8. Novyi Mir

a) Edited by Alexander Tvardovskii (1950-1954, 1958-1970)
b) Published articles calling for more freedom/creativity and fewer tractors in literature.
c) Published daring new writers such as Solzhenitsyn, Voinovich, and Grekova.
d) Published previously banned or limited authors (Continued beyond end of thaw.)

i) Anna Akhmatova
ii) Mikhail Zoshchenko
iii) Mikhail Bulgakov
iv) Marina Tsvetaeva
v) Isaak Babel

9. During the "thaw" Boris Pasternak won the Nobel prize for literature in 1958.  He was not permitted to accept it and was subject to a vilification campaign in the press and the Writers' Union.

II. End of the Thaw

A. The Manezh Incident (1962) A confrontation between Khrushchev and abstract artists (including Ernst Neizvestny).
B. Joseph Brodsky arrested and tried for "parasitism" (1963-4).
C. Andrei Siniavsky and Yuli Daniel are tried for publishing anti-Soviet literature abroad (1966)

III. The Stagnation

A. Official Literature

1. Still freer than in Stalin's time.
2. Allows for a fair amount of freedom if the government is not attacked.
3. Some writers

a) Yuri Trifonov
b) Andrei Bitov
c) Fazil Iskander
d) Vladimir Tendryakov
e) Vasil Bykau
f) Chingiz Aitmatov
g) Valentin Rasputin
h) Vasilii Shukshin
g) Yevgeny Yevtushenko

B. Samizdat: The practice of distributing literature through carbon copies.
C. Tamizdat: The practice of publishing works abroad.
D. Metropol' Affair in 1979.
E. Emigres

1. Brodsky (1972)
2. Sinyavskii (1973)
3. Solzhenitsyn (1973)
4. Voinovich (1980)
5. Aksenov (1980)
6. Sergei Dovlatov
7. Eduard Limonov

IV. Russian Authors who have won the Nobel Prize for literature.

A. Ivan Bunin (1933)
B. Boris Pasternak (1958)
C. Mikhail Sholokhov (1965)
D. Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1970)
E. Joseph Brodsky (1987)