American visitors to USSR, 1930s, 40s and 50s

Fri Mar 12 23:23:33 UTC 2004

One obvious fictional portrayal of an American's visit to the Soviet Union
in those years is, of course, Alexandrov's film Circus (Tsirk). Also, a few
tangential references - also dealing with fictional treatment of the
subject, and not from the point of view of either Russians or Americans
(though of some would-be Americans). Israel Joshua Singer (elder brother of
Isaac Bashevis Singer) have written about his visit to Moscow, and Isaac
Bashevis Singer's own novels have some characters who contemplate going to
Soviet Russia (some do - as, for example, a communist lover of the main
protagonist in _Shosha_). Another pseudo-Jewish fictional character travels
to Russia from Vienna - Joseph Roth's Franz Tunda in _Flight Without End_
(Joseph Roth himself was, of course, also in Russia briefly in the early
decades of the USSR).

Best, Sasha Senderovich
PhD student, Harvard Slavic

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brewer, Michael" <brewerm at U.LIBRARY.ARIZONA.EDU>
To: <SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU>
Sent: Friday, March 12, 2004 4:03 PM
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] American visitors to USSR, 1930s, 40s and 50s

> Alina,
>
> I think the texts by Americans may still be valuable.  Many of these
people
> lived in Soviet Russia for many years and certainly got to know Soviet
> citizens well enough to get some sense of how they were perceived by them.
>
>
> Another strategy would be to collect a list of some of the Americans that
> spent time in Soviet Russia during these times (there look to be a couple
> good dissertations on this "Angels in Stalin's paradise : Western
reporters
> in Soviet Russia" could be good for a list of correspondents and "American
> radicals and Soviet Russia, 1917-1940" or "American observers in the
Soviet
> Union : 1917-1933" for others).  You could then peruse autobiographical
> works by Soviet figures that may have come in contact with them (or that
you
> found did come into contact with them from reading the works by Americans
> who lived there).  I remember running across some less than complementary
> perceptions of our now Librarian of Congress James Billington in
researching
> Varlam Shalamov and Nadezhda Mandel'shtam (who met him in Mandel'shtam's
> "kitchen"). Unfortunately, Soviet books are not well known for their
> indexes, but newer editions or translations of these works might have them
> and help speed up the process.
>
> I would think that you would find quite a bit in autobiographical works by
> writers (Pasternak, Erenburg, Paustovskii, Kataev?), film or theater
> directors, scientists or historians (Likhachev comes to mind) or
engineers,
> etc.  Most of these would probably have been published in 1960s or later
(so
> their perceptions may have been altered by time), but I think they could
> still be valuable
>
> Anyway, I'm not sure this is a complete dead end.
>
> mb
>
> Michael Brewer
> German & Slavic Studies and Media Arts Librarian
> University of Arizona Library, A210
> 1510 E. University
> P.O. Box 210055
> Tucson, AZ 85721-0055
> Fax 520.621.9733
> Voice 520.621.9919
> brewerm at u.library.arizona.edu
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alina Israeli [mailto:aisrael at AMERICAN.EDU]
> Sent: Friday, March 12, 2004 2:25 PM
> To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] American visitors to USSR, 1930s, 40s and 50s
>
> >If you just peruse Worldcat (or your own library catalog) for the subject
> >heading
> >
> >Soviet Union Description and Travel
> >
>
> But that's not what Susan's student wants (see below). She wants to know
> how the Soviets reacted to Americans who came to visit during Stalin's
time
> (of all times!). I doubt such info exists, unless someone wrote a memoir
> after the fact acknowledging clandestine meetings with Americans when such
> meetings were deadly.
>
> There were two groups of Americans that came to the S.U. during those
> years: left-leaning immigrants, mostly Jews, occasionally by-racial
couples
> who had a hard time of it in the US (and boy did they get stuck in the SU,
> I knew at least three such families), and the second group were American
> communists who were coming to get instructions from the HQ. I forget the
> name of the head Communist and his common law wife, who came on one such
> visit with their son, jovially put him up in the "detskij dom" (orphanage)
> - communists' paradise in their estimation - and went about their
communist
> business. When the time came to leave SU to go back home they were told
> that they could not take their son since he spoke Russian, so they left
him
> there for good. I believe his new Russian name was Tixomirov, and he
became
> a scientist. Then of course there were some performers, Paul Robeson, for
> ex., a frequent visitor to the" land of freedom".
>
> Considering that Soviet citizens interested in self-preservation should
> have done their utmost not to meet foreigners, it's not very likely that
> they committed to paper information that could cause their destruction.
>
>
> >>Hello,
> >>A student of mind would like to write about Soviet citizens' impressions
> of
> >>American visitors to the Soviet Union in the 30s, 40s and 50s.  Could
any
> >>of you recommend some memoirs or other texts that she could use?
> >>Thank you very much.
> >>Susan Kresin
>
>
> __________________________
>  Alina Israeli
>  LFS, American University
>  4400 Mass. Ave., NW
>  Washington, DC 20016
>
>  phone:    (202) 885-2387
>  fax:      (202) 885-1076
>
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