Writer’s daily life in Soviet realities: Reconstruction based on personal letters

Abstract

The article is based on material from personal letters (more than 200 units) of the Soviet writer Leonid Vorobyov, a member of the Union of the Soviet Writers, which he wrote to his friend during the last decade of his life (1967–1976). The methods of content analysis and discourse analysis made it possible to comprehend the activities, which the writer did during the “stagnation period”, as well as his daily life. The relevance of the research is due to the increasing interest of scholars and artists in the Soviet era and the need for its unbiased understanding, the presence of nostalgia for it among a large part of the country’s population. The novelty of this article is predetermined by the material itself, which is extremely rarely subjected to systematic analysis, and yet, it is personal letters that contain unique evidence of a bygone era, unbiased and without any expectation of publicity. At the same time, the author introduces into scholarly circulation many new historical facts regarding the interaction of writers with the Soviet system of book publishing and the media, and the life of a creative person in conditions of financial dependence solely on his work. The study showes that in Soviet realities, the creative intelligentsia was forced to constantly face not only censorship and personal fears of those in power, but also dependence on the rules of the game in Soviet society that were not officially announced. As a result, even a person, who was successful in terms of social status and productivity, was limited in freedom of expression, even in the smallest details, which entailed lack of money, illness and numerous disappointments.

Keywords:

writer, personal letters, Leonid Vorobyov, nostalgia for the Soviet, instability, interpretation of reality