Nõukogude Eesti kirjanduselu parteiline juhtimine 1960. aastatel kirjanike liidu näitel
PARTY CONTROL OVER SOVIET ESTONIAN LITERARY LIFE IN THE 1960S ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE WRITERS’ UNION

Summary/Abstract: During the Soviet era, literature was one of the main tools of communist propaganda. Consequently, writers were assigned a crucial educating, guiding and influencing role within the ideological project. As “engineers of the human soul” they were expected to not only communicate the ideological message, but also to construct and disseminate the Soviet worldview and help bring up “Soviet people.” One example of ideological guidance and direction in literary life is the interaction between the Communist Party and the Writers’ Union of the Estonian SSR. This interaction mostly consisted in Party guidelines, control and other forms of direction exercised by the Party through its officials and agencies at various levels, above all the primary Party organization of the Writers’ Union. The styles and forms of management developed and changed alongside the general political and social developments. By the 1960s, the time of stern management through Party decisions and rigid enforcement of the socialist-realist canon was over in literary life. The documents of the primary Party organization of the Writers’ Union cover a variety of topics – they discuss the administrative side of the primary organization, issues pertaining to individual writers, problems with publishing and censorship, creative questions, as well as the scope and essence of the social responsibilities assigned to writers. As is typical of the Khrushchev Thaw, the discussions were often quite informal and critical in tone, but the main ideological line and framework through which Soviet ideologists saw writers and literary life remained unchanged. From the point of view of the authorities, writers were still expected to be at the forefront of social change. From the writers’ perspective, however, there was much more space and opportunity within this framework to expand their modes of expression without coming directly into conflict with the authorities.

• Details
• Contents