Yelena Ostrovskaya (University of Strassbourg)
Abstract
The International Literature journal was conceived by the International Union of Revolutionary Writers as an “organ of revolutionary militant thought” published in the four main European languages, Russian, English, German and French. In reality, however, it gave birth to four editions, united by title and editorial board, but differing in their aims and audiences, especially between the Russian and ‘foreign’ versions. While the ‘foreign’ editions originally published authors from different countries in an attempt to create a ‘commons’ of communist world literature (Clark), in the late 1930s they virtually became the mouthpiece of Soviet literature. The paper discusses the journal as a project, with a special focus on the English version and its route to foreign readers.