Pasternak & potatoes

[Steven Hill]

Dear colleagues,

Maybe somewhere out there are Pasternak scholars who would be familiar
with the background of B L  Pasternak's much quoted phrase about a
certain writer being artificially cultivated in Russia, "like potatoes."

Of course,  in this phrase Pasternak  was referring to V V Maiakovskii's
imposed renaissance in Stalin's USSR in the 1930s.  It occurs to me that
another writer had an imposed renaissance under Stalin, at about that
same time, perhaps an even bigger imposed renaissance, and that would
be good old A M Peshkov ("Gor'kii").

Any chance that Pasternak, when he grumbled about "potatoes,"  on the
subconscious level might have been thinking  not only about the imposed
renaissance of Maiakovskii,  but also that of Gor'kii...?

Sincerely,
Steven P Hill (U of Illinois, USA).

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