The Russian Literary Climate

In the summer of 1994, when Elisabeth Rich conducted these absorbing interviews with eleven writers, the Russian literary world was anxious and turbulent. The Soviet regime had long since collapsed, but a stable replacement for it seemed far from view. Russian society was insecure, impoverished and undisciplined; corruption was rampant. The writing community, which had once seemed fairly unified, was now fragmented and unsure of its bearings. Literature often thrives, however, in an atmosphere of crisis. Readers of these interviews will find elements of misery and frustration but will also find accounts of health, vigor, and hope. The writing community in 1994, although disturbed and bemused, was not despondent. It is evident that in places the interviewees are not in harmony and contradict one another. Still, nearly all of those who speak here, while uncertain of literature's immediate prospects, seem confident that its future is promising. Professor Rich interviewed a variety of persons-novelists, authors of short fiction, playwrights, poets, editors of the thick journals that are Russia's time-honored literary media. Some of them-such as Andrei Bitov, Valentin Rasputin, Viktor Erofeyev, Tatyana Tolstaya, and Vladimir Makanin-have been notably successful and prominent both at home and abroad. Others, such as Sergei Zalygin, Vyacheslav Pyetsukh, Aleksandr Prokhanov, and Anatolii Kim, although prominent in Russia, are less well known outside its borders. Two-Mariya Arbatova and Larisa Vasilyeva-are scarcely known abroad but are established writers with good, if modest, reputations in Russia. Their political and ideological views vary. Two of them-Rasputin and Prokhanov-are nationalist and conservative, and the latter is an outright reactionary by any measure. The others seem to be fundamentally apolitical, but generally liberal, cosmopolitan and democratic in their sentiments. Although they are not nationalists, they are proudly Russian in orientation, including Kim, despite his Korean background. Professor Rich consistently asked important questions and managed to get significant answers to nearly all of them. She allowed her subjects freedom to digress and to expand on topics of their own choosing. As a result, the interviews offer abundant information

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