V zaščitu političeskoj poézii [30-10-1937] - [D031]

Concise description of the directive:

Polemic against Usievich’s article in “Literaturniy kritik”, 5 (1937). Usievich denies the genre of political poetry, stating that in the past there was no division between poetry understood as art and political poetry. But if it is true that late 19th-early 20th century bourgeois poetry increasingly distanced itself from the political interests of its class and devoted itself to the cult of jouissance, of Bacchus, and of the flesh, abandoning the real world to embrace its own fantasies, it is also true that revolutionary political poetry rooted in the people’s hopes and their hatred of their exploiters has always existed in the past. The best examples of such poetry are the works of Dante, Byron, Pushkin and Nekrasov.