Sovětský román – Clarková Katerina (2015)

Katerina Clark's monograph, which deals with the history and development of the novel as a favored genre of socialist realism, represented a significant milestone in the analysis of Soviet literature in the early 1980s. The author assigned a voice to ideologically rejected works in the West and interpreted them not from the perspective of the Western canon of classical literature, but in terms of the continuity and key dichotomies that accompanied Russian/Soviet culture across the 19th and 20th centuries. Using anthropological theories, she uncovers the development of the Soviet novel as a complex and changing field where power, social, and purely literary factors collide. She perceives it not only as a result of conscious power repression but also as a means of mutual negotiation between politics and literature, as a ritual space where significant cultural forces that shape the entire Soviet society crystallize. The book thus offers, among other things, an inspiring view of the dynamics and multifaceted nature of socialist realism, which is sometimes understood en bloc as a static sum of utilitarian political doctrines. It is published in the Happy Tomorrows series.