Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Transliteration
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 The War Theme in Poetry 1914–1941
- Chapter 2 Soviet Poetry 1941–1945: A Chronological Survey
- Chapter 3 Heroes and Leaders: Socialist Realism in Wartime Poetry
- Chapter 4 The Common Man
- Chapter 5 Women in Poetry and Women Poets
- Chapter 6 ‘No-one is Forgotten and Nothing is Forgotten’: The War in Post-war Poetry
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Preface
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Transliteration
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 The War Theme in Poetry 1914–1941
- Chapter 2 Soviet Poetry 1941–1945: A Chronological Survey
- Chapter 3 Heroes and Leaders: Socialist Realism in Wartime Poetry
- Chapter 4 The Common Man
- Chapter 5 Women in Poetry and Women Poets
- Chapter 6 ‘No-one is Forgotten and Nothing is Forgotten’: The War in Post-war Poetry
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
During the Second World War, Soviet writers were urged to ‘equate the pen with the bayonet’, in other words, to use their literary talent as a weapon against the enemy. In its original context, Vladimir Maiakovskii's 1925 poem ‘Domoi!’ (Homewards!), however, it was not the idea of the word as a weapon which was uppermost in his comparison of pen and bayonet, but the idea of the mass production of poetry in accordance with the state's plan. In the poem Maiakovskii expresses the wish that he should be given tasks for the year by Gosplan (the state planning agency), that his lips should be padlocked at the end of the working day, and that Stalin should report to the Politburo about recent increases in the understanding of poetry. The tone of the poem is humorous and ironic, but the readiness of the poet, even in jest, to give up his artistic freedom is alarming. The meaning of the desire to equate the pen with the bayonet can, therefore, be interpreted as a wish to write to order, a rejection of autonomy.
It is the aim of this book to explore the extent to which poets in wartime actually did ‘write with the bayonet’, producing work which conformed to official expectations, and also the ways in which poets were able to set their own agenda, taking advantage of the greater creative freedom the war afforded them.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Written with the BayonetSoviet Russian Poetry of World War Two, pp. 1 - 3Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 1996