Journal archive

Abstract: In economically weak Soviet Russia, financially unprofitable literary production needed external forms of support and ideological justification for its existence. The institutional component was fundamental to the literary process of the Soviet period. Literary unions and organizations that had institutional status, i.e. the ability not only to legalize their programs, but also to publish the works of their members, promote them, increase their popularity, and provide facilities for creative work, appear in the first post-revolutionary decades. Thanks to them, and not to the writer’s own activity or outstanding talent, the social weight and importance of writers of the 1920s and 1930s increased. On the example of A. Platonov's creative destiny it is shown that literary associations turned out to be necessary for the publication of works and payment for writers' work. The principles of creation, organization and functioning of literary associations are shown on the example of LOKAF (Literary Union of the Red Army and Navy). It is one of the literary unions focused on the ideology of the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers. This is one of the little-studied and forgotten unions, which played an important role in the development of military-patriotic themes in the Soviet literature. The analysis of the institutional bases of LOKAF shows that it was the first literary union which had a definite, politically approved and ideologically significant task to make the writers focus on the theme of patriotism. LOKAF fulfilled the requirements of the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers about “mass writer” and “mass reader”. LOKAF’s critical reviews played a great role in the formation and development of these requirements, the choice of artistic means and identification of the exemplary works of the military topic. Its achievement is that the military-patriotic theme became “fashionable” among the writers in the 1930-s and it was favorably accepted by the publishing houses. Moreover, it occupied a significant place in the Union of Soviet Writers created later. The article introduces the archival materials of the Institute of the World Literature from the “LOKAF” foundation into scientific circulation.