“THE PARTY’S COMMANDS OR THE HEART’S DESIRE…”: SEVERAL PAGES FROM THE HISTORY OF THE SVERDLOVSK BRANCH OF THE UNION OF SOVIET WRITERS (1946)

The article considers the traces of external influences on works Soviet (including Ural) writers in first post-war year, which marked end so-called thaw period (1943–1946), a brief spiritual upsurge society recovering from global catastrophe. In this article, term influence refers to ideological pressure coming literary critics, colleagues, and other similar phenomena culture expressed discourse. Addressing historical materials that preserved such evidence makes it possible see goals authorities aiming control creative processes and, certain extent, intellectual moral level themselves as well. protocols general party meetings Sverdlovsk branch Union Writers for 1946 used study can be attributed kind documentary sources. Theoretically, analysis builds E. A. Dobrenko’s ideas about “formation writer” concept “ideal type social realism proposed by T. Kruglova, well understanding socialist method structuring work within framework ideology. It was impossible ignore impact resolution Central Committee Communist Party journals “Zvezda” “Leningrad” (August 14, 1946) had made writers. provoked numerous discussions “insufficiently high level” fiction regional branches Writers, restricted course national literature impeded its development years. Much attention is paid discussion unpublished short story “Meeting” (1946) Ural writer Nina Popova took place organization at Moscow seminar prose writers, text story.