THE CREATION OF THE UNION OF SOVIET WRITERS OF THE VOLGA GERMAN REPUBLIC: GERMAN WRITERS AND THE REGIONAL PARTY COMMITTEE (1932 - 1935)

Abstract

The article reconstructs the circumstances of the creation of the Union of Soviet Writers of the Volga German Republic in 1932-1935 in place of the Republican Association of Proletarian Writers, which was liquidated by the decision of the Central Committee of the CPSU(b). The main focus is on the participation of several Soviet German journalists and writers - most notably Paul Kufeld, Gerhard Zavatski and Andreas Saks - in the difficult task of creating the Union, as well as the relationship between them. At the same time, it shows the active leadership of the process of creating the Union by the Regional Committee of the CPSU(b) of the Volga German Republic, in particular, the appointment of writers to senior positions in the Union. The sources for writing the article were a variety of archival documents that are kept in the archives of Saratov and Engels. Written in German and Russian, they fully reveal the history of the creation of the Union of Soviet Writers of the Volga German Republic, however, they had not previously been used for historical research. The study of these documents leads to the conclusion that the increase in mass repressions complicated both the process of creating the Union and relations between Soviet German writers, and most importantly, tragically affected their destinies.