Committee:

Michael Reynolds
Ekaterina Pravilova
Stephen Kotkin
Beth Lew-Williams
James Heinzen, Rowan University

Abstract:

This work seeks to explore the implementation of the Soviet nationalities policy in the literary sphere in several non-Slavic Soviet ethnonational territorial entities, including Georgia, Armenia, and Karelia. The seven decades of Soviet rule in these borderland territories coincided with the period when ethno-territorially oriented nation-making enterprises crystallized across Eurasia. In the Soviet context, the national identity of the titular nations of ethno-nationally delineated territorial entities was bound to their respective titular territories and the Soviet state. The national cultures of the titular peoples of these ethnonational territorial entities of the Soviet empire took shape under the official doctrine of “national in form, Socialist in content.” The class-based and ideologically rooted dictums gave rise to the officially instigated promotion of national literary icons as repositories of the national character of Soviet nations. The promotion of these literary works and figures was vividly manifested through academic conferences, publications, monuments in urban spaces, literary festivals, and extravagant jubilees.

Superficially, these efforts appeared to disseminate the specific cultural and literary traditions of these Soviet nations across the vast, multiethnic Soviet empire. However, beneath this instrumentalization of the pre-Bolshevik national literary heritage, a sinister and monotonous political agenda was at play, laden with ideological impingements and pro-regime messages. In this study, I scrutinize the Soviet policy regarding the national cultures in the non-Slavic borderlands through the prism of pre-Bolshevik literature and its implications for the Soviet nation-making projects unfolding across the Soviet Union’s ethnic borderlands.

The Soviet monumentalization of national literary icons presented a more accessible, less rigorous form of ideological indoctrination. Disguised in the form of pre-revolutionary literature, this ideologically oriented program of cultural engineering not only promoted Socialist values on a mass participatory platform but also helped strengthen conceptions of the national character amongst the Soviet public. Each chapter presents a case study highlighting the importance of the pre-Bolshevik national literary icon as a crucial component in the Soviet palimpsest of the national character of the ethno-territorially bound Soviet nation.

A copy of the dissertation will be available for review two weeks before the exam. Contact Lee Horinko for a copy of the dissertation and the Zoom meeting link and password.

All are welcome and encouraged to attend.