The Kharkiv Conference of Revolutionary Writers, 1930: Multilingualism, Translation, and the Leftist Periodicals Network

• In Event: Provincializing Internationalism: Periodicals, Publishers and Practices I: Translating

Abstract

"According to Katherine Clark, the Kharkiv Conference of Revolutionary Writers, held in November 1930, became ""a dividing point in the history of the literary international."" Over the course of a week, proletarian writers, communists, and fellow travelers from 22 countries participated in sessions adn discussion, song together L’Internationale, got acquainted with Soviet Ukraine's capital and its citizens, and got to know each other. The conference led to greater institutionalization of the writers' movement, the reorganisation of writer's union, and founding of a new literary periodical published in four languages in Moscow.
Drawing on the conference participants' accounts, this paper examines how leftist writers networked in multilingual environments where they often lacked a common language. The conference's communicative practices displayed a twofold nature: participants were divided not only by national but also language principles (expressed, for example, in the existence of an Anglo-American section) while simultaneously feeling a sense of belonging to an imagined international community of leftist writers without national or language boundaries. It was exactly this communicative nature of the communist writers' movement that was reflected in the complex structure of the journal project ""Literature of World Revolution,"" later renamed to ""International Literature,"" which was founded at the conference."

Author

• Elena Zemskova, Tel Aviv U (Israel)