Cultural Life in the 1960s in the USSR as Reflected in Tout compte fait (1972), the Autobiography of Simone de Beauvoir
Cultural Life in the 1960s in the USSR as Reflected in Tout compte fait (1972), the Autobiography of Simone de Beauvoir

Summary/Abstract: The article aims to discuss cultural life in the USSR in the context of the changing cultural policy in the 1960s as reflected in Simone de Beauvoir’s memoirs. During the period from 1962 to 1966, de Beauvoir was visiting the Soviet Union regularly together with Jean-Paul Sartre, spending several weeks in different parts of the country. Unlike Sartre, she left a written account of the political, economic, and cultural situation in the USSR. De Beauvoir captured the transition from the so-called Thaw to the Stagnation that occurred during that decade. During their first visits, the atmosphere was still rather liberal and a desire to communicate with the West was still present, but soon the persecution of dissidents and the antisemitic trials began. This article emphasizes the importance of autobiographical books in de Beauvoir’s oeuvre, highlighting, on the one hand, the narrator’s accuracy and attention to detail and, on the other hand, her efforts to shape the narrative at will, bypassing uncomfortable aspects (such as tensions in her relationship with Sartre and the real role of some people in their life). De Beauvoir’s most important sources of information were the liberal writers of the time such as Ilya Ehrenburg and Yefim Doroch, as well as translator Lena Zonina and others. De Beauvoir’s sympathy for the Soviet system, like Sartre’s, is still a source of controversy, while her description of the changes in cultural life of the Soviet Union in the 1960s can be a valuable resource for researchers of the Soviet era.

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