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History of the Literary Institutions in the Soviet Union and Beyond (edited by Evgeny Dobrenko and Alessandro Farsetti)

Vol. 17 (2024): History of the Literary Institutions in the Soviet Union and Beyond

The Publishing House “World Literature” as the First Soviet Literary Institution: History in Documents

Published
2025-02-03

Abstract

The World Literature Publishing House (1918-1924), founded on the initiative of Maxim Gorky, is the first Soviet literary publishing institution designed to ensure interaction between the new government and the broadest literary and scientific circles of the Russian intelligentsia. As an institutional association of writers, scientists, translators and editors, the publishing house developed the principles of its existence in accordance with the complex socio-political and economic situation of the first years of revolutionary transformations in the country. Based on the documents of the A.M. Gorky Archive of the Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a digital archive of the publishing house vsemirka-doc.ru was created as part of the Russian Science Foundation project “The History of the World Literature Publishing House in Documents: the Fate of the Creative Intelligentsia of Russia in the Post-Revolutionary Space through the Prism of the Maxim Gorky Publishing Project”. Thanks to the project, researchers can gain access to previously unknown documents, in particular, to the minutes of the Editorial Board meetings, which shed light on the methods and principles of the publishing house’s work during the first six post-revolutionary years.