The Soviet Myth of Sibilla Aleramo

Abstract

The article studies the works by Italian communist author Sibilla Aleramo (1876– 1960), written after her visit to the Soviet Union in 1952, namely an essay “Return from Moscow” published in the communist newspaper “Unità” on September 25, 1952, a poem “Russia alto paese” and a speech on her travel impressions, published in 1953. The analysis of the texts focuses on the functioning of the key elements of “Russian” and “Soviet” myth, which largely determined the image of the USSR in the eyes of Western societies in the early 1950s. The author pays special attention to religious motifs regarded through the prism of Paul Hollander’s concept of “political pilgrimage.” The article analyzes the historical context of the mentioned works, their place among other Italian travelogues on the Soviet Union written in the same time period, as well as the specific traits of Aleramo’s texts distinguishing them from travel prose of her contemporaries and forerunners (Italian authors, who visited the USSR in 1920s and 1930s). It also examines the image of the Soviet Russia created by Aleramo in the paradigm of the Russian and Soviet myth.

Keywords

• sibilla aleramo
• the ussr of the 1950s
• soviet-italian cultural relations
• travelogue
• russian myth
• soviet myth
• paul hollander
• political pilgrimage