Privileges and status
Everything for your “creative rest”
The Soviet Union was a totalitarian state, and in regards to artists, it used a “carrot and stick” method. While we already know much about the “stick,” meaning the repressions that began in Ukraine before the notorious year of 1937 (the start of the “Great Terror,” when Stalin’s repressions extensively intensified), the “carrot” part is to be researched.
Probably, if it weren’t for Russia’s war against Ukraine, it would already be time for a thorough study of literary life during the Soviet era because this material provides additional insights into the history of literature and the context of that time’s history.
You can gain some knowledge about those times of the Soviet Ukrainian literary scene from, for instance, the book “Secrets of Writers’ Drawers” by Stanislav Tsalyk and Pylyp Selyhey. It tells the story of a house for the local literary elite, the House of Writers or RoLit, an apartment complex that was once the home of famous authors, where Ukrainian writers lived closely together. There are also new films, both documentary and fictional, about a similar building in Kharkiv — the Slovo House. A convincing atmosphere of writers’ privileges is portrayed in the novels “Klavka” and “Yura” by Ukrainian writer Maryna Hrymych.
Read more: Documentary film “Slovo House”: “Communist heaven” and “crematorium” for writers
A state “supports” artists
The resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) “On Restructuring Literary and Artistic Organizations” (1932) marked a radical shift in the relationship between the state and artists. It was decided to “have them by the short and curlies.” The abolition of various literary and artistic organizations was only the first step.
The goal was to eliminate the pluralism in the cultural sphere that was unacceptable to the regime,
achieving an absolute ideological monopoly in order to effectively combat any deviations from ideological dogmas.
After the foundation of the Union of Soviet Writers (USSR Union of Writers) in 1934, an agreement between the state and artists came into effect. At the time, writers, allegedly called the “engineers of human souls,” received special attention. Even more so, according to the rules, they were “fighters of the ideological front.”
A writer in the Soviet Union could live a good life
The authorities took care of writers and artists by tempting themwith huge circulations, royalties and other benefits. Artists, not crushed by the millstones of repression, now found themselves at a crossroads. They could accept all the benefits in exchange for their “loyalty” or withdraw, literally “holding tightly,” as Ukrainian poet Vasyl Stus said about his favorite (Ukrainian) poet Volodymyr Svidzinsky.
The latter could allegedly have become a member of the writers’ cooperative Slovo (the one that initiated the construction of the Slovo building in Kharkiv), but he made a different choice instead. In 1927, he self-published his second poetry collection, “September,” condemning himself to homelessness, the need to rent tiny nooks to stay in, and the half-starved existence of a literary editor.
Later, he was arrested at the beginning of the war and faced a terrible death at the front line, and his work succumbed to a long, deliberate oblivion during the postwar period.
A life of fear in the writer’s cooperatives
On the other hand, the choice Svidzinskymade postponed his arrest and death for some time, while the life of the inhabitants of those writers’ houses was made of fear. It is known that even before the outbreak of the war, numerous arrests took place. Artists committed suicide.
Writers’ memoirs feature evidence of listening to the footsteps on the stairs at night: “If they stay still, they came to get me. No, they have passed…” “Kharkiv at Night” is a painting by Anatol Petrytsky that is kept in the National Art Museum. The ‘subtext’ of this painting is incredible. The whole scene seems to be a look at the night street through a carefully drawn curtain, maybe through the window of the Slovo building.
On the opposite side of the street waits a black Volga, the car people called the “black raven,” and it seems that those footsteps on the stairs are already being heard in the silence of the night…
Anatol Petrytsky «Kharkiv at night»
Writers Union
There was a special institution that took care of the well-being of writers who were members of the Union (only members of the Union were officially considered writers!) — Litfond (short for “literary fund”). The Litfond operated in Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union, but the republican and regional branches performed the same functions in other parts of the country. The nature of the social and material needs of the “pen workers” changed over time.
The Litfond, as an organization, skillfully accustomed writers who were loyal to the authorities to gain certain benefits, such as improved medical care in Litfund clinics, material support in the form of housing arrangements, or the construction and maintenance of writers’ dacha (country house) villages. The omnipotent Litfond also provided preferential vouchers to Houses of Creativity, sanatoriums, and medical boarding houses.
Houses of Creativity
The Writers’ House of Creativity deserve mentioning in this context. Writers’ House of Creativity in Irpin near Kyiv is probably the most famous of them. It used to be beautiful, the food was delicious, and the atmosphere was cozy. Gradually, the inevitable decline came, and all the benefits that Soviet writers enjoyed disappeared, including high fees and prizes.
One of the next to last heads of the Writers’ Union of Ukraine (already in the days of independence) sold the Litfond polyclinics because of financial difficulties.
However, the now-abandoned Writers’ Houses of Creativity did know their good times. In an autobiographical story “Why Am I Not a Falcon?” by the popular comedian Oleksandr Kovinka admired the Writers’ Houses of Creativity in Yalta, Crimea, where everything, even the “structure itself,” was conducive to the writer’s “creative rest.” Let’s go back to the times when that life flourished in full. “Life has become better, life has become happier!” was a widespread version of a phrase uttered by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
Soviet newspapers and radio assured the population in every possible way it was true.
The literature established what would later be called the “conflict-free theory.”
It means that even if a conflict was allowed, it was a conflict between the good and the better. A Ukrainian writer, Oleksandr Korniichuk was the unsurpassed master of such a “conflict” in drama, and he had a monopoly. His plays were performed on all stages, not only in Ukraine but throughout the Union.
LitFund Privileges
Improved medical care at LitFund clinics
In the form of housing assistance, or construction and maintenance of writers’ dacha villages
To creative centers, sanatoriums, and health resorts.
Special ‘outlets’ where once a month, on a ‘special’ day, a writer could get a kilo of scarce buckwheat, a bottle of oil, the best-canned food, and so on.
Improved medical care at LitFund clinics
In the form of housing assistance, or construction and maintenance of writers’ dacha villages
To creative centers, sanatoriums, and health resorts.
Special ‘outlets’ where once a month, on a ‘special’ day, a writer could get a kilo of scarce buckwheat, a bottle of oil, the best-canned food, and so on.
A special food for the writers
The Litfond also provided access to special sites where one could buy scarce goods that were unavailable in public stores. There were “sites” where “engineers of human souls,” their wives, or even household workers could buy good food once a month. Even though there were less options than in the Central Committee’s “distributors,” it was still tempting to get a kilogram of the ever-scarce buckwheat or a bottle of oil. If oil appeared in stores occasionally, there was a long line of people wanting to buy it. There were the best canned goods, which were only occasionally “thrown out” for sale, and so on.
Moreover, there were no lines, because people signed up to come on a certain day. (Here, we keep in mind that many of the regular goods for Soviet people were almost impossible to buy – especially the basic ones – bread, butter, oil, meat, etc.)
Prizes and awards
However, these were trifles compared to the system of encouragement and reward for artists who were loyal to the authorities that the prizes constituted. Perhaps the highest among them was the Stalin Prize, which was in effect from the early 1940s until 1955. Its further evolution is also significant.
It became known as the Lenin Prize, then the State Prize! Particularly zealous were the multiple laureates, with the aforementioned Korniichuk being the most successful. He received the Stalin Prize five times! There were no representatives of Ukraine among the four-time laureates, but Vanda Vasylevska, Korniichuk’s wife, was awarded three times, just as Russian director Sergei Mikhalkov and Russian director and scriptwriter Sergei Gerasimov.
Prizes for writers
Established (in the field of literature):
1940
Awarding procedure:
1 per year for outstanding works in the nominations:
- poetry
- prose
- drama
- literary criticism
Prize money:
100 thousand rubles
Established (in the field of literature):
1956
Awarding procedure:
6 people per year for the most outstanding works of literature and art
Prize money:
10 thousand rubles
Established (in the field of literature):
1966
Awarding procedure:
Up to 100 people annually (this included scientists, writers and artists)
Prize money::
5 thousand rubles
Established (in the field of literature):
1958
Awarding procedure:
1 time per year. For the best literary, journalistic and publicistic and other cultural achievements.
Prize money:
1 thousand rubles
Established (in the field of literature):
1940
Awarding procedure:
1 per year for outstanding works in the nominations:
- poetry
- prose
- drama
- literary criticism
Prize money:
100 thousand rubles
Established (in the field of literature):
1956
Awarding procedure:
6 people per year for the most outstanding works of literature and art
Prize money:
10 thousand rubles
Established (in the field of literature):
1966
Awarding procedure:
Up to 100 people annually (this included scientists, writers and artists)
Prize money::
5 thousand rubles
Established (in the field of literature):
1958
Awarding procedure:
1 time per year. For the best literary, journalistic and publicistic and other cultural achievements.
Prize money:
1 thousand rubles
There were of course various combinations of high awards. Writer Oles Honchar, for instance, was twice awarded the Stalin Prize, but then he also received the Lenin Prize and later the State Prize.
He was also a holder of three Orders of Lenin. Laureates enjoyed privileges, such as traveling for free, although it would seem that this particular category of the population did not need it, considering the monetary reward, which changed several times, was still very significant – of one hundred thousand rubles. The title of laureate of this award, as well as the corresponding badge, made it possible to enjoy all the benefits that existed for the highest Soviet nomenclature.
A possible success in printing
Thinking about huge print runs of Soviet-era writers, we must not forget that this was a “pre-television” era, until almost the end of the 1970s.
Reading was very widespread, as it was one of the main types of leisure and recreation. The network of libraries and library collectors, by its development, showed that someone was keeping an eye on what the “population” read, and on whose behalf critics often made their judgments (“the people will not understand” or “the people do not need”). However, even with this correction, the circulation of books by the so-called living classics of the time is impressive.
The controllability and regimentation of literary “production,” especially the post-war, was also manifested in the fact that even a young writer–if they met certain requirements and were also endowed with a certain talent – could make a brilliant and rapid career. In the late 1940s, the young Oles Honchar published “The Alps,” the sequel to his successful novel about the war, in the magazine “Vitchyzna” (Motherland) under the title “Blue Danube.” Both works, united under the title “The Standard Bearers,” were published by the Soviet Writer publishing house with the print run of 25,000 copies and by Molod publishing house with 30,000 copies.
At the same time, a Russian translation was published in Moscow (30,000 copies). Honchar’s work on Ukrainian literature was included in the school curriculum and staged. The novel received the Stalin Prize twice: first as “The Blue Danube,” then as “The Banner Bearers.”
Once, Oles Honchar found himself under fire from critics, even though, at that time he was the head of the Writers’ Union and a member of the Verkhovna Rada. He was “worked over” for his novel “The Cathedral” (1968), for the rather sharp formulation of some problems (conflicts!), and also because a certain person from the authorities recognized themselves in one negative character. As a result, the work received a great public response. As soon as fervor subsided, the novel was reprinted in 25,000 copies. This was not enough: the devastating criticism could sometimes, contrary to its intentions, play the role of advertising. However, direct advertising of opuses written in the spirit of socialist realism also existed and did its job.
Among the means of party and state control over literary activity, the most efficient were awards and circulation.
Between 1939 and 1959, the Soviet Writer publishing house published 1278 titles with a total circulation
of 22 million and 215 thousand copies. In 1963-1966, it published 469 titles with a total circulation of over 9.5 million.
In 1979, the publishing house issued 136 titles with a total circulation of 3.5 million copies.
There was also the Dnipro Publishing House, the second largest in the Soviet Union, and various regional publishing houses.
Circulations of the Publishing House "Soviet Writer"
Rewriting the novel for “a better”
When the authorities saw a certain wayward writer as already “tamed,” the circulation was even bigger. Roman Andriyashyk (1933-2000) went through all the circles of literary hell. The magazine publication of his second novel, “Poltva” (the name of an underground river in Lviv), caused a real storm. The critics were especially furious because of a certain fact they preferred not to talk about.
The novel was reprinted by Suchasnitst (Contemporary) Munich magazine, a “hostile” media outlet at the time.
After years of forced silence and unemployment or no creative “job,”
the writer managed to “outplay” the system by writing acceptable works.
This novel, but under a different title, was published in 1982 with the third part missing from the original publication and some notes “for good measure.” The circulation is incredibly large as of for today — 65,000 copies.
Justice for the Forgotten Names
In Soviet times, it was almost impossible to be a successful author and not to “serve for the system” – for surviving or for very generous benefits. Some writers, like Svidzinsky, took a kind of vow of silence, or they did not finish and even destroyed their works, knowing that they would not be published anyway. Some went into literary translation as perhaps the only way to participate in the creation of culture in an unbiased way.
To conclude our story, we name again at least few names of incredible writers, who deserve to be known, remembered, and most importantly, read: writer and scriptwriter Ivan Chendei; writer Anatoliy Dimarov; writer, translator and researcher Borys Antonenko-Davydovych; writer and poet Leonid Pervomaisky; poet Sava Holovanivsky; writer, political and civil activist Mykola Rudenko;translators Hryhoriy Kochur and Mykola Lukash; and writer, poet and translator Vasyl Mysyk…
Eleonora Solovey (Honcharyk)
Doctor of Philology, professor,
member of the NSPU
and the Ukrainian Center of
of PEN International
Translation: Iryna Saviuk
Copy editing: Nicole Yurcaba
This article is a part of the special project ‘Erasure of a Word’ created in support of the exhibition ‘Antitext’. The project is implemented by the Chytomo media in cooperation with the Kharkiv Literary Museum, with the support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).