Guests by Zorin, Leonid (1954). Intergenerational conflict centered around an honest Old Bolshevik and his adult son, who has become an arrogant, corrupt, materialistic bigwig, interested only in his position and comfort. The bigwig engages in an arbitrary injustice and plots to ruin the career of an innocent man. The Old Bolshevik uncovers the plot and banishes his son. Even the bigwig's own son--a representative of the younger generation--promises to wage tireless war on his father and all like him. Published in Feb 1954, it is one of the first Thaw-era work.(more)

The Thaw by Ehrenburg, Ilya (1954). The novel which gave its name to an entire era of Soviet history, consisting mainly of interior monologues of a wide range of characters who are living inner personal lives at odds with their outer, public lives. Others struggle to keep love out of their souls because it conflicts with their duties to the factory and to the Party. A talented artist squanders his talent for the sake of glory and material success. But as winter passes and the spring thaw comes, a change is beginning--loves and childlike exuberances are blossoming out into the open. (more)

Those Who Seek by Granin, Daniil (1955). A scientist with a new idea, struggles to invent a device which will be of great benefit to the Soviet electrical industry. Bureaucrats and established scientists at first try to steal the invention. When this fails, feeling their position and privilege threatened, they begin falsifying their own data and whip up a 1930s-style slander campaign against the young scientist, including charges of deviation from Marxism-Leninism. They attempt to manipulate Party meetings and stifle open discussion in order to advance their own careers. However, the falsity is eventually revealed, the rank-and-file demand the truth, and the neer-do-wells receive their comeuppance. In another Thaw-era touch, unconventional love is rehabilitated, i.e., the young scientist has an adulterous relationship and lives to tell about it. (more)

Alone by Aleshin, Samuil (1956). An adulterous relationship breaks up two happy marriages. The adandoned spouses struggle to hold onto their wayward partners. The adulterers try to quash their impulses, but in the end they must be honest to themselves and to others by admitting their love. The Party tries to intervene, but is rebuffed. Who is to blame? Is it right to live a lie in order to preserve social propriety? Is it right to tell the truth when it only does harm to the blameless? What to do when duty is the same as misery? Is it ever too late for happiness? No black-and-white answers are offered to these questions--an ambiguity made possible by the conditions of The Thaw. But the author makes it clear that an honest woman, thus abandoned, bears no shame and should continue to hold her head high. Every human being retains his or her individual worth. Science teaches us, "In life, in man, everything is individual." (more)

Not By Bread Alone by Dudintsev, Vladimir (1956). An inventor struggles against the invisible empire of bureaucracy and self-servers in a courageous attempt to advance the Soviet pipe industry. (more)

Petrarch's Sonnet by Pogodin, Nikolai (1956). A solid, reliable, middle-aged man (Sukhodolov) develops a pure (Petrarchic) love for a young woman and starts writing her letters (his "sonnets"). Those still in the thrawl of the "bourgeois morality" of the Stalinst past get in a tizzy over this supposed violation of socialist morality (even though the lovers never actually do anything physically). An official investigation is launched, but Sukhodolov refuses to cooperate, saying that there are some reaches of the human heart and human emotion which are none of the Party's business. (more)

"On Sincerity in Literature" by Pomerantsev, Vladimir. Appearing in the December 1953 issue of the journal Novy Mir, this essay attacked insincerity and the varnishing of reality in socialist realism. It provoked a firestorm of controversy and marked the beginning of The Thaw in Soviet literature. "Just say NO to tractors!" (in English translation)

"On the Mistakes of Novy Mir". Artical appearing in the newspaper Literaturnaya Gazeta in August 1954 announcing the firing of Aleksandr Tvardovsky as chief editor of the journal Novy Mir, partly in retaliation for his publication of "On Sincerity in Literature". (in English translation)

"Light in the Window" by Nagibin, Yuri (1956). Published at the height of The Thaw in the blockbuster anthology Literary Moscow - Volume Two, Yuri Nagibin's Light in the Window blasts the wasteful, pointless, and just plain unfair privilege enjoyed by the elite. (in English translation)

"Levers" by Yashin, Aleksandr (1956). The blockbuster story that shocked a nation, lambasting Party officials as duplicitous, bureaucratic, and pedantic, treating people as mere levers to be manipulated, not as human beings. (Complete text in English).

TVARDOVSKY AXED !
In August 1954, Stalin-prize winning poet Aleksandr Tvadorsky was dismissed from his position as chief editor of Novy Mir, the leading literary journal in the USSR. The move was in response to the "incorrect, idealistic and nihilistic tendencies" expressed in the journal (i.e., articles promoting the Thaw in Soviet literature). SovLit.com presents a summary of the charges against Tvardovsky, including the complete text of "On the Mistakes of Novy Mir", the article in Literaturnaya Gazeta which announced his sacking. (Click here for the full story.)

Ehrenburg Blasts Conservatives at 2nd Congress of Soviet Writers! (1954)
Attacked for being untruthful and distorting Soviet reality, veteran Soviet author Ilya Ehrenburg lashed back at his critics at the 2nd Congress of Soviet Writers, which was held exactly 50 years ago (15 - 26 December 1954). Ehrenburg branded much of Soviet literature as oversimplified, tiresomely didactic, and divorced from reality. He called for a return to civility in literary discourse and an end to book reviews which read like criminal accusations. Soviet writers must, he insisted, "do everything possible to make our literature worthy of our great people." (Click here for the text of Ehrenburg's speech in English.)

Konstantin Fedin on the State of Soviet Literature, 1957. Short excerpt from an interview in which Fedin comments on the "invigoration" of Soviet literature and its renewed willingness to present the conflicts and ugliness of life.

Aleshin, SamuiI. A short biography. Dudintsev, Vladimir. A short biography. Ehrenburg, Ilya. A short biography. Granin, Daniil. A short biography. Nagibin, Yuri. A short biography. Pogodin, Nikolai. A short biography. Tvardovsky, Aleksandr. A short biography. Yashin, Aleksandr. A short biography.

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