Making Ukraine Soviet: Literature and Cultural Politics under Lenin and Stalin(Library of Modern Russia)

Winner of the BASEES Alexander Nove Prize 2021 Winner of The American Association for Ukrainian Studies 2019-2020 Book Prize Honorable Mention for the ASEEES Omeljan Pritsak Book Prize in Ukrainian Studies 2022 While most studies of Soviet culture assume a model of diffusion, according to which Soviet republics imitated the artistic trends and innovations born in Moscow, Olena Palko adroitly challenges this centre-periphery perspective. Rather than being a mere imposition from above, Making Ukraine Soviet reveals how the process of cultural sovietisation in Ukraine during the interwar years developed from a synthesis of different – and often conflicting – cultural projects both local and Muscovite in orientation. Engaging with a wide range of primary and secondary sources, including literary and archival material, Palko grounds her argument in the cases of two celebrated and controversial Ukrainian artists: the poet Pavlo Tychyna and prosaist Mykola Khyl’ovyi. Through this unique biographical lens, Palko's skilled analysis of cultural construction sheds fresh light on the complex process of establishing and consolidating the Soviet regime in Ukraine. In doing so, Palko offers a timely re-assessment of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict and adds nuance to current debates on the relationship between national identity, the arts, and the Soviet state.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Note on Transliteration and Translation List of Abbreviations Introduction Part I. Competing Projects of Ukraine 1. ‘Above Kyiv there is a Golden Hum’: The National Revolution in Kyiv 2. In Search of ‘a blue Savoy’: The Bolshevik Revolution in Kharkiv Part II. Debating Soviet Culture in Ukraine 3. Towards Soviet Literature in Ukrainian 4. Defending Soviet Ukrainian Literature Part III. Fitting in the Soviet Cannon 5. ‘Ukraine or Little Russia’: The Battle for Cultural Autonomy in 1926 6. State Appropriation of Literature during the First Five-Year Plan Epilogue Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Olena Palko is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London, UK.

Review :
Palko offers a fascinating tour of the myriad and mercurial cultural institutions of the early Soviet Ukrainian world. Olena Palko’s highly accomplished book represents a ground-breaking contribution to several fields: Soviet history, Ukrainian history and 20th-century Ukrainian and Soviet literature and culture… [It] weaves a vivid picture of a whole literary and artistic culture in a state of flux, excitement and ultimately disillusionment. It is a rare book that has so much to offer to literary scholars and historians alike [Making Ukraine Soviet] is therefore a very entertaining journey through the history of Ukrainian culture during the period of consolidation of communist power over Ukraine ... this is one of the best books of the last decade as regards research on the history of Ukraine in the early communist era. Palko’s Making Ukraine Soviet represents a novel analytical study of the interwar period of Soviet Ukraine ... Palko’s book will appeal to scholars of Soviet history, literature, and culture, especially those specializing in Soviet Ukraine’s literary and political affairs. It may be equally attractive to a general readership familiar with the works of Tychyna and Khvyliovyi. [A] well-researched monograph ... [the book] permit[s] the reader to gain a nuanced understanding of the protagonists both as artists and as political figures. Palko’s work therefore has important lessons that reach far beyond the study of the 1920s and early 1930s ... The monograph lays a solid foundation on which other scholars will hopefully build to trace how this dynamic continued to shape Ukrainian culture. This is a fresh look at a crucial episode in Soviet history. By following the careers of Mykola Khvyl’ovyi and Pavlo Tychyna, the author unravels tangled threads that united and divided writers, artists and political figures in the 1920s. She argues that a “simple arithmetic” of revolution, a juxtaposition of friends and enemies, cannot explain the situation in Ukraine. Instead, the story of cultural sovietization is best seen as a clash of two competing models: Soviet Ukrainian culture and Soviet culture in the Ukrainian language. The victory of the latter led in 1933 to Khvyl’ovyi’s suicide and Tychyna’s publication of Partiia vede (the Party Leads), the poem that symbolizes his capitulation to the regime’s demands. Drawing on new archival findings, Palko’s study skillfully interweaves political history, biography and literary analysis. Olena Palko ably charts the emergence of a space called Soviet Ukraine through an engaging and carefully researched narrative. In her telling, Ukrainian writers crafted an emergent national culture, but readers ultimately defined its parameters.