Na soveščanii kritikov [1933] - [D140]

Concise description of the directive:

The report documents a meeting held on 26 September 1933 between Leningrad literary critics and members of the editorial board of the journal “Literaturniy kritik”, including comrades Usievich and Rozental. The meeting, initially conceived with the aim of strengthening ties between Leningrad criticism and the journal, ended up taking on a much broader character, turning into a debate on the main theoretical and practical issues of Soviet literary criticism.
During the discussion, the need to overcome the indeterminacy that still characterises critical activity and to initiate systematic work, based on concrete analyses, capable of responding to the ideological and cultural demands of the historical moment, emerged strongly. It was noted that, until then, critics and methodologists had often avoided a direct confrontation with the texts, limiting themselves to general statements and quotations devoid of genuine analytical content.
One of the central themes of the debate was the role that “Literaturniy kritik” should assume as a space for the theoretical elaboration of socialist realism. In particular, participants stressed the urgency of filling this formula with concrete content and systematically reconstructing its historical premises was emphasised. Comrade Usievich’s intervention attracted considerable attention: she observed that in recent critical practice the class struggle has tended to be “forgotten”(p. 166) and that, when faced with literary manifestations bearing ideologically hostile elements, critics have not been able to react with due firmness.
The spread of two opposing approaches to writers was also noted: on the one hand, an excessively punitive attitude (“they are beaten with clubs”, udaryayut oglobley), and on the other, a lenient and accommodating posture (“they are treated with kid gloves”, obkladyvayut vatoy) (ibid.). Both tendencies have been judged harmful — the first for its repressive rigidity, the second for its tendency to avoid critical confrontation and indulge in unfounded praise.
Finally, the meeting reaffirmed the importance of close coordination between “Literaturniy kritik” and other publications, in particular “Literaturnaya gazeta”, in order to ensure the political orientation of the journal and its function as an organic instrument of the party line.

Ilaria Aletto, Maria Zavyalova