Vožd’ i kul’tura. Perepiska Stalina s dejateljami literatury i iskusstva. 1924–1952. 1953–1956 [Der Führer und die Kultur. Der Schriftwechsel Stalins mit Literaten und Künstlern 1924–1952, 1953–1956]. Sostavitel’ V. T. Kabanov. Moskva: Čelovek, 2008. 311 S. ISBN: 978-5-903508-33-4

Vožd’ i kul’tura. Perepiska Stalina s dejateljami literatury i iskusstva. 1924–1952. 1953–1956 [Der Führer und die Kultur. Der Schriftwechsel Stalins mit Literaten und Künstlern 1924–1952, 1953–1956]. Sostavitel’ V. T. Kabanov. Moskva: Čelovek, 2008. 311 S. ISBN: 978-5-903508-33-4.

Iosif Stalin took special interest in culture (arts and literature) as well as history and considered himself the ultimate arbiter in cultural matters. People knew this well and often wrote to Stalin for help and intervention. As a result, there is a vast archive of correspondence between cultural supplicants and Stalin the Ultimate Arbiter. The present book contains a collection of such correspondence already published elsewhere. Although this represents merely a small part of the vast archive, it is of considerable interest.

Among the long list of supplicants are many well-known members of the cultural elite, beginning with Maksim Gor’kii and Aleksandr Fadeev and ending with Sergei Eizenshtein, Il’ia Ehrenburg and Kornei Chukovskii. Also on the list one finds Mikhail Bulgakov, Mikhail Zoshchenko, Boris Pasternak, Mikhail Zamiatin and even Anna Akhmatova. (Akhmatova wrote to Stalin in 1950 asking him to release her arrested son Lev Gumilev and allow him to continue his historical studies. She said, “to serve the Motherland is a holy duty for him, as well as for me” (p. 243). There is nothing on Osip Mandel’shtam, Andrei Platonov, Nikolai Kliuev, and others, although a very damaging report by the secret police on Isaak Babel’ from the year 1936 is included (pp. 264–66).

One of the most interesting cases in the book is that of Dem’ian Bednyi (1883–1945), the Soviet “court poet.” Bednyi, born Efim Alekseevich Pridvorov into a peasant family in Kherson, Ukraine, joined the Bolshevik party in 1912 and became an important cultural figure and an agitator. With Lenin’s permission, he was granted a personal railway wagon in which he travelled around the country as an agitator for the Red Army. Throughout the 1920s he cherished the privileged use of a luxurious railcar and wrote poems in support of Stalin and against his political opponents. When Mariia Il’inichna, Lenin’s sister working in the party’s control commission, asked Stalin to transfer Bednyi’s car to someone else who actually needed it, Stalin consented on the condition that his own car be given to Bednyi (pp. 20–21). In 1928 when Bednyi was ill, Stalin let him go to Germany for treatment, a special privilege for the Soviet elite (pp. 22–26).

Stalin did not always protect Bednyi, however. In 1930 Stalin subjected Bednyi to harsh criticism for allegedly being too critical of Russia: Bednyi did not distinguish between the old, reactionary Russia, and the new, revolutionary Russia (pp. 72–80). Bednyi, like the historian Mikhail Pokrovskii, could not quite understand Stalin’s changing views of Russian history. By the mid-1930s Bednyi had further alienated Stalin, although in 1935 Stalin still supported Bednyi’s request for a better dacha (pp. 125–132, 181–182). In 1938 the secret police sent a report to Stalin which portrayed Bednyi as highly critical of Stalin and the Soviet government (pp. 268–270). Bednyi was fortunate: Stalin did not touch him. During World War Two Bednyi was allowed to work again, but he never recovered Stalin’s old trust. He died apparently of natural causes in 1945.

This book is more than a compilation of correspondence, however. There is the famous speech Stalin made in 1929 in which he defended Bulgakov’s White Guard against his critics. Also included is Stalin’s conversation in 1947 with Sergei Eizenshtein and Nikolai Cherkassov in which Stalin criticized Ivan the Terrible for not being determined enough to kill off the bayars.

One amusing anecdote describes Georgii Malenkov plagiarizing an encyclopedia article in a speech: the article happened to be by someone who had been repressed in 1937. Stalin had the opportunity of reading Malenkov’s draft beforehand. Stalin cut the plagiarized part of the speech (although it is not known whether Stalin knew of the plagiarism). Malenkov restored and read the passage at the 19th party congress in 1952, even though it was not included in the written text. Eventually Stalin was informed of Malenkov’s plagiarism, but he appeared to have taken no measures. Malenkov was censured after Stalin’s death by the party’s Central Committee (pp. 289–294).

While these episodes and correspondences are not new, having previously been published in various books and periodicals, the commentaries by the compiler, V. T. Kabanov, are useful. Unfortunately, however, he chose not to include the sources of the documents he published here. All the same, the present book is a fascinating read for anyone interested in Stalin and culture.

Hiroaki Kuromiya, Bloomington, IN

Zitierweise: Hiroaki Kuromiya über: Vožd’ i kul’tura. Perepiska Stalina s dejateljami literatury i iskusstva. 1924–1952. 1953–1956 [Der Führer und die Kultur. Der Schriftwechsel Stalins mit Literaten und Künstlern 1924–1952, 1953–1956]. Sostavitel’ V. T. Kabanov. Moskva: Čelovek, 2008. 311 S. ISBN: 978-5-903508-33-4, http://www.dokumente.ios-regensburg.de/JGO/Rez/Kuromiya_Kabanov_Vozd_i_kultura.html (Datum des Seitenbesuchs)

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