Cosmopolite of the Soviet Union: Lion Feuchtwanger in the American Exile (Part II: 1945–1950)

The article examines the American period of the life and work of the German writer Lion Feuchtwanger after World War II and the complex fate of his major novel Waffen für Amerika, which was completed at the beginning of the Cold War. The novel was published by three publishing houses: the New York-based The Viking Press, the London publisher Hutchinson, and an Amsterdam-based one, established to replace Querido, which had been destroyed by the Nazis. Feuchtwanger hoped the novel would attract interest in the Soviet Union, so the manuscript was also sent to Moscow. From the outset, the novel’s title proved to be a vulnerable point. In English, the novel was titled Proud Destiny and was enthusiastically received by American critics. In Moscow, however, the pro-Soviet symbolism of the work was not understood. The success the novel enjoyed in the U.S., as well as both its German and English titles, were interpreted in the Soviet Union as an indication of America’s new role in the postwar world — global domination. From friends who had returned to Germany — Brecht and Zweig — Feuchtwanger learned that Soviet critics had labeled him as one of the “mongrel cosmopolites”. Thanks to the efforts of Feuchtwanger’s friends and their negotiations with the head of the Information Administration (SVAG) S.I. Tyulpanov and the Soviet cultural officer A. Dymshits, the attitude toward the writer was reconsidered. A key role in Feuchtwanger’s rehabilitation was played by an article by Heinrich Mann, written for his birthday in the Berlin journal Ost und West. After this, the novel was published in German and Russian under the title Die Füchse im Weinberg (The Foxes in the Vineyard).