«Literaturnaya Sibir» (1933-1934): to the issue of forming the socialist realist canon

The paper considers the history of a little-known Siberian newspaper «Literaturnaya Sibir» («The Literary Siberia») printed in Novosibirsk from 1933 to 1934. It can be attributed to so-called «phantom» editions mostly known by their titles rather than by their contents by virtue of their inaccessibility. The reasons for creating «Literaturnaya Sibir» and its short publication life are analyzed. The paper examines the contents of the edition and describes the circle of its authors. It is pointed that in the overall textual space of the newspaper, the literary criticism prevailed where the main importance was attached to the appealing articles, written in accordance with the common agonal model of writing. It is revealed that the purpose of the directory function of such publications was to campaign for creating literary works about «new socialist Siberia». The comparative analysis of the writings of «Literaturnaya Sibir» and certain editions of «Literaturnaya Gazeta» («The Literary Newspaper») of the corresponding periods leads to the conclusion that the Siberian edition appeared as a tracing paper of the metropolitan one: the both were aimed at preparing the First Congress of Soviet Writers and at creating the writings about the new image of the capital («Literaturnaya Gazeta») and the Siberian region («Literaturnaya Sibir»). Meanwhile, the subject parallels found in these editions demonstrate the cultural and ideological vertical being actively formed: from the metropolis to regions. The Novosibirsk newspaper takes up the metropolitan initiative to call «shock-workers» to literature. In a number of its publications, «Literaturnaya Sibir» tries to keep the pace of «Literaturnaya Gazeta» by calling both «shock-workers» and «foremost collective farmers» to master actively the «literary business», hoping to achieve the results by the beginning of the Congress of Writers. It is symptomatic that on the pages of the newspaper no question of the artistic value of literary works was raised. The analysis of the literary texts published in «Literaturnaya Sibir» showed that in fact their subject area completely followed the enunciated ideological guideline. The particular «obedience» characterized the authors of prose and drama concentrated on the common subject of new Siberia as a huge building work. As a result, the research leads to the conclusion that «Literaturnaya Sibir» is found to have reflected the basic tendencies of literary life early in the 1930s just before the First Congress of Writers. The publications in the newspaper serve as another proof that by the beginning of the Congress the socialist realism canon had already been basically formed not only in the centre of the country but also in such a distant region as Siberia. Freedom of creation in literature specifically in avant-garde came to the end in the 1920s.

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