From the Continent E. v. KUEHNELT-LEDDIHN

The Russian literary monthly Novy Mir has always been courageous, especially under the editorship of Aleksandr Tvardovsky, who was deposed a few years ago and died in 1971. It was Novy Mir that first published Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s short novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (with Khrushchev’s blessing). Preparations were then made to print his Cancer Ward and The First Circle in several installments, but the censor stepped in, and these novels have still not been published in the Soviet Union except in samizdat editions.

In Russia it has always been the custom to serialize novels in periodicals or in daily papers prior to their appearance in book form. Dostoyevsky, for instance, frequently saw the first part of his novels in print in a St. Petersburg paper before he had even finished them. Yet, in the history of Soviet literature, Novy Mir stands out among the journals and publishing companies (all state-owned and state-controlled) that had the extraordinary courage to publish controversial authors during a very dangerous period. Little do we outsiders know what it cost them.

EK

About the Author

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

Featured Tags

Manage following

Literature

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The Russian literary monthly Novy Mir has always been courageous, especially under the editorship of Aleksandr Tvardovsky, who was deposed a few years ago and died in 1971. It was Novy Mir that first published Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s short novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (with Khrushchev’s blessing). Preparations were then made to print his Cancer Ward and The First Circle in several installments, but the censor stepped in, and these novels have still not been published in the Soviet Union except in samizdat editions.

In Russia it has always been the custom to serialize novels in periodicals or in daily papers prior to their appearance in book form. Dostoyevsky, for instance, frequently saw the first part of his novels in print in a St. Petersburg paper before he had even finished them. Yet, in the history of Soviet literature, Novy Mir stands out among the journals and publishing companies (all state-owned and state-controlled) that had the extraordinary courage to publish controversial authors during a very dangerous period. Little do we outsiders know what it cost them.