The Phenomenon of Collective Estate in Peredelkino. 1936‒1938
The paper examines the early years of the Writers’ Village in Peredelkino (1936–1938), an exclusive settlement established prior to The First Congress of Soviet Writers. In particular, the article focuses on the short period of 1937 when the dachas were granted co-operative status and became the pro...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Russian Academy of Sciences. A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature
2023-12-01
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| Series: | Литературный факт |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://litfact.ru/images/2023-30/04_Koznova_87-99.pdf |
| Summary: | The paper examines the early years of the Writers’ Village in Peredelkino (1936–1938), an exclusive settlement established prior to The First Congress of Soviet Writers. In particular, the article focuses on the short period of 1937 when the dachas were granted co-operative status and became the property of the writers. It was during this time that the cottages were refurbished and the writers’ community reorganized; their moving into the dachas coincided with the beginning of expulsions and arrests. The considerable and long-awaited improvement of everyday life led to the development of unusual hobbies among the writers, which would become an attempt to return to the pre-revolutionary dacha life for some, or a way to set up their own household for others, while being a means to escape from the reality of the Great Purge for all of them. This isolation, an attempt to regain control over their lives and creative work, did not pass unnoticed with the secret services and the leaders of the Soviet Writers’ Union. Peredelkino was mentioned in secret files as a place of artistic and personal freedom. In the summer of 1937, some writers were arrested. The subsequent abolition of the co-operative put an end to the paradox of the collective estate and contributed to the transfer of the dachas into communal use. The article considers the phenomenon of Soviet writers’ collective living, a kind of a collective estate of the first residents of Peredelkino, based on egodocuments and previously unknown archival sources, namely the documents on the establishing and annulment of the Co-operative “Pisatel” in Peredelkino. |
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| ISSN: | 2541-8297 2542-2421 |