Writers of the Urals under Stalinist Repression: Survival Strategies and Creative Adaptation

This article examines the role of the Union of Soviet Writers and its regional branches in shaping not only the creative but also the political worldview of Soviet writers. On the one hand, membership in the organisation offered benefits such as better housing, improved nutrition, and access to medical and health resort services. On the other hand, it was a constant threat. Researchers still do not know the entire circle of Ural writers and other participants in the literary field of the 1930s. This problem is primarily associated with the lack of sources traditional for studying other eras: letters, diaries, autobiographical works because at any moment they could be used as evidence. The documents of the Sverdlovsk Union of Soviet Writers have also been preserved in extremely fragmentary form, mostly lost by the organisation itself or confiscated by higher authorities. The minutes of the meetings of the party organisation and the board of the Sverdlovsk Union of Writers for 1937, preserved in the fund of the Sverdlovsk Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) are a unique and little-known source that makes it possible to observe the process of interaction between creative individuals and government structures in the smallest details. All the documents of this case are considered in the article as a single text dedicated to exposing enemies, admitting guilt, and searching for survival strategies. The investigative-judicial vocabulary constantly used at the meetings, supplemented by religious vocabulary, creates the effect of a theatrical performance, the basis of which is the exposure of enemies and the “epiphany” of erring writers. This “game” allowed for improvisation; most often, writers turned to memory, using it as the main element of defence. While analysing the writers’ speeches, the primary strategies of behaviour and creative adaptation were identified. These strategies include withdrawal into the shadows, such as taking a long creative business trip, moving to another city, missing meetings, or temporarily abandoning creative work. The other strategy is repentance, which involved admitting mistakes made, acknowledging imperfections, and recognising the need for criticism. Self-censorship formed on the basis of one’s own experience during the years of Stalinist repression became a fail-safe mechanism of prohibition.