‘Life as big as the ocean’: Bolshevik Biography and the problem of personality from late Stalinism to Late Socialism

Journal article

This article analyses the major changes in the publication and reception of Soviet biographies of Bolshevik heroes in the first two post-war decades, comparing the reforms undertaken by the two most important publishers of such biography, Molodaia gvardiia and Politizdat. The article argues that the 1950s and 1960s witnessed not just criticism of Bolshevik biographies' tendencies towards de-personalization and standardization, but also substantive reform to their writing, editing and reading, with the goal of evoking individual personality in a more emotionally involving and therefore politically effective way. The article argues that Soviet publishers were themselves well aware of the problems of Bolshevik biography; the reforms that they undertook to address these problems suggest some striking parallels with the debates about personality and biographical form that unfolded in Western European and American biographical criticism of the 1960s and beyond. It concludes that Bolshevik biography underwent a substantial ‘literary turn’ in the 1960s, laying the foundation for further formal experimentation, especially in the biographical novel, in late socialism.

Authors: Jones, P

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: University College London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies
• Journal: Slavonic and East European Review
• Volume: 96
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 144-173
• Publication date: 2018-02-15
• Acceptance date: 2017-08-24
• EISSN: 2222-4327
• ISSN: 0037-6795