{"id":33126,"date":"2022-11-24T00:06:02","date_gmt":"2022-11-23T21:06:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hitmedia.su\/?p=33126"},"modified":"2022-12-24T16:59:56","modified_gmt":"2022-12-24T13:59:56","slug":"233-gradusa-po-tselsiyu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hitmedia.su\/en\/2022\/11\/24\/233-gradusa-po-tselsiyu\/","title":{"rendered":"233 degrees Celsius: what literature could not be read in the USSR?"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time<\/span> 7<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

\u00abIt was impossible to find these two volumes on sale, only in libraries and without taking out\u00bb \u2013 say Kirill Sorvin, HSE sociology professor, about one book which he was looking for when he was a student in USSR. Some literature was banned in USSR due to official ideology. Very few people at the time knew about it. Nevertheless, such books were read and even distributed with Samizdat that was illegal in the country. However, the majority of citizens found out about banned literature only after the collapse of the USSR.<\/p>\n

Contradictions of Early and Late Marx<\/h3>\n
\"For<\/a>
For the first time it became possible to buy \u00abEconomic-philosophical manuscripts, 1844\u00bb in the USSR only in 1983.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00abThe work is called Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts 1844, it was the 42nd volume of the Works of K. Marx and F. Engels collection or a separate volume From Early Works. This work was not presented in any other form. Western Marxists discovered in this book another Marx\u2019s philosophy, they called it \u00abMarx-humanist\u00bb. There was a discussion about the contradiction of \u00abEarly and Late Marx\u00bb, which, of course, was denied in our official philosophy\u00bb. Accordingly, this work was not among the \u00abcanonical\u00bb books like \u00abThe Capital\u00bb which was close to Russian vision of communism.<\/p>\n

As a student, Kirill Sorvin tried to exchange a two-volume book of the Strugatsky brothers, which was highly valued among the youth of that time, for \u00abEconomic and philosophical manuscripts\u00bb, but such a book anybody from his classmates did not have.<\/p>\n

Second volume of \u2018Robinson Crusoe\u2019<\/h3>\n

The Novel of English writer Daniel Defoe started publishing in Russian Empire in 1762. Only the first part of the series entered the treasury of world literature, which spawned a fashion for pseudo-documentary fiction. Nevertheless, people knew about existing of the sequel and even the book was popular among Europe readers. However, in Russian Empire the second volume was not published and in USSR from 1935 to 1992 it was banned.<\/p>\n

\"In<\/a>
In 1971, the publishing house \u00abPravda\u00bb published a retelling of the work with a limited edition.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Only In 1971, the publishing house \u00abPravda\u00bb published a retelling of the work with a limited edition. The main reason for this was that Robinson during his Siberian trip faced a lot of corruption and said that Moskovia is \u00abbarbaric, powerless and poorly managed mob of slaves\u00bb.<\/p>\n

\u00abIn the second part Robinson, among other things, travels in Russia, gives her not all the appropriate characteristics. Why did publishers have to take the responsibility to comment on \u00absuch\u00bb past of people?\u00bb \u2013 Kirill Sorvin explains.<\/p>\n

George Orwell and Yevgeny\u00a0Zamyatin<\/h3>\n

Yevgeny Zamyatin is considered a pioneer in the genre of anti-utopia. The novel \u00abWe\u00bb became the cause of serious criticism of the writer, and since 1929 his books have stopped at all publishing in the USSR. Zamyatin describes a society of rigid totalitarian control over the individual. Actually \u00abWe\u00bb is a critic of the Soviet system, with which the genre of anti-utopia began to flourish. Although, for example, Aldous Huxley, one of the first writers in this direction, categorically denied acquaintance with the work of the Russian writer.<\/p>\n

\"Illustration<\/a>
Illustration to the novel E. Zamyatin \u00abWe\u00bb<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The satirical story \u00abAnimal Farm, 1945\u00bb by George Orwell depicts the transition of the animal society from their freedom to the dictatorship of a pig named Napoleon. According to playwright Arkady Bartov, \u00abAnimal Farm\u00bb is an allegory of the 1917 revolution and subsequent events in the USSR. Orwell wanted to portray how easily totalitarian propaganda could control people\u2019s opinions and at the same time to condemn \u00abStalin\u2019s distortion of socialist ideals\u00bb. Last but not least fact about this book is that boar Old Major is an allegory of Karl Marx. And how you find out from the first paragraph: Soviet authorities couldn\u2019t stand when somebody represented the idol of their philosophy in \u00abwrong way\u00bb.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Russian aphorism \u00abAll are equal, but some are more equal\u00bb belongs to George Orwell. The complete version in the book \u00abAnimal farm\u00bb sounds like this: \u00abAll animals are equal, but some animals are more equal\u00bb.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Subsequently, most of the books in this genre, including the Soviet ones, were banned in the USSR. Anti-utopias will appear in Soviet society only with the introduction of a policy of publicity near the end of the 1980s. For example, George Orwell\u2019s most popular novel \u00ab1984\u00bb was declared anti-Soviet immediately after its release in 1949 and remained banned until 1988. The policy of publicity is a controversial process in the history of the USSR. Some believe that it has undermined the people\u2019s belief in the system, while others thank Gorbachev for it. But the fact is that these books can now be read legally \u2013 both online and offline.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading time<\/span> 7<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>\u00abIt was impossible to find these two volumes on sale, only in libraries and without taking out\u00bb \u2013 say Kirill Sorvin, HSE sociology professor, about one book which he was looking for when he was a student in USSR. Some literature was banned in USSR due to official ideology. Very few people at the time … Continue reading “233 degrees Celsius: what literature could not be read in the USSR?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1103,"featured_media":33130,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-33126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blank","tag-5-2","keywords-state","keywords-literature","keywords-past","size-medium"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hitmedia.su\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hitmedia.su\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hitmedia.su\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hitmedia.su\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1103"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hitmedia.su\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33126"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hitmedia.su\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33455,"href":"https:\/\/hitmedia.su\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33126\/revisions\/33455"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hitmedia.su\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hitmedia.su\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hitmedia.su\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hitmedia.su\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}