Cockrell, Roger

About the author: Roger Cockrell is Senior Lecturer in Russian at the University of Exeter. His previous publications include Russian Views of Pushkin (Oxford, 1976), The Voice of a Giant (Exeter, 1985), an edition of Fadeev’s The Rout (Bristol, 1995), and The Exeter English-Russian Dictionary of Cultural Terms (Exter, 1998).

Bolshevik Ideology and Literature, 1917-1927
2000 0-7734-7709-8
Through an analysis of twenty-five texts, together with the particular dilemmas faced by their authors, this study illuminates a way of thinking that was instrumental in shaping a traumatic period in Russia’s history. Issues include: the attitude of the Bolshevik party toward literature; the relationship between belles-lettres and propaganda; the attitude toward pre-revolutionary culture; the significance of the term ‘proletarian’; the portrayal of heroes in literary texts; and the attitude to be adopted toward writers and artists who were unwilling to conform to the accepted viewpoint. Writers examined include Fadeev, Furmanov, Gladkov, Ivanov, Lavrenev, Leonov, Liashko, Libedinskii, Malyshkin, Pil’niak, Platonov, Seifullina, Serafimovich.

Price: $159.95