Query: Soviet Critic A. Ragozin

[David Powelstock]

Dear SEELANZHTSY,

I am trying to learn more about one "A. Ragozin," who wrote a remarkable
Pravda editorial in August 1939, criticizing Soviet critics' overapplication
of laudatory cliches to classic authors.  (He was especially harsh on
"vulgar narodnost'," which appropriated nearly every author as a "people's"
writer.)  The only other reference I could find was in a denunciation of the
_Literaturnyi kritik_ group (10 February 1940), which speaks of one
"Ragozin" (no first initial) as a a "critic close to" _Litkritik_,
mentioning that he had recently been arrested.  What searching I have
done--turning up a variety of *other* Ragozins--suggests that this "Ragozin"
is almost beyond a doubt the "A. Ragozin" of the _Pravda_ editorial.  I
cannot tell whether he is related to the chess grandmaster Viach.
Vassilievich, the critic Kseniia; or (in the 19th c.)
industrialists/brothers Viktor & Evgenii Ivanovich or emigree "orientalist"
Zenaida Alekseevna.

I would be most grateful if anyone can tell me *anything* about this guy,
his work, his dates, his fate--his patronymic (or even its initial).

Sources I have searched:
        -- various library catalogs (seems he wrote no books)
        -- the web (pretty extensively)
        -- lots of lit on literary criticism & culture in 1930s

I have not been in a location where I can consult either the _LIteraturnaia
entsiklopediia_ of the 1930s or the _Kratkaia literaturnaia entsiklopediia_
of the 1960s.  Ragozin might have contributed to the former.  I doubt,
however, that he, seeming to have been a minor figure, would be mentioned in
an entry in either.  (If anyone has these close at hand and could check w/o
too much trouble, I would be extremely grateful.)

Fraternally, looking for clues,
david

David Powelstock
University of Chicago
d-powelstock at uchicago.edu

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