Shmelev in the USSR. (Chapter Two: Editions and Reception in Post-War Period)

Abstract

The article examines the history of the publication and reception of I.S. Shmelev’s works in the USSR from the point of view of his emigrant status after the Great Patriotic War. In the after-war decade, Shmelev practically disappeared not only from the readers’ but also from the research area. He is not considered a figure of sufficient significance in the literary process, even in the fundamental academic “History of Russian Literature.” Only in 1957, Shmelev’s first book with a preface by B.V. Mikhailovsky was published in the USSR after a long break, and then two more collections prepared by O.N. Mikhailov (in 1960 and 1966), which gradually filled in the gaps in educational and academic works. Shmelev’s works entered the scholarly interpretation of the literary process as full-fledged components only in the 1970s, but this applies only to the pre-revolutionary period. The complete description of the emigrant period is still a few pages in the preface by O.N. Mikhailov (1966). In 1957–1966, Shmelev was published but practically not studied, and in the 1970s and early 1980s, Shmelev was studied but not published. Only since 1988 Shmelev’s books begin to be published in the USSR one after another. A new stage of his “presence” in his homeland begins, during which his emigre works first rose to the level of pre-revolutionary works and then came forward.

Keywords

• ivan shmelev
• reception
• literary heritage
• literary criticism
• journal- ism
• boris mikhailovsky
• oleg mikhailov.