The Experiences of one generation of Soviet poets: their illusions and choices

Archival material and oral history texts reveal the nuances of choices made and convictions held by a generation of poets who made their debut in the 1960s: postwar psychological trauma, self-preservation and a poetic ambition to be recognized in the society in which they lived. Having made a decision to work, write, and publish in the official press, the writers had no choice but to conform. Poetic works which began as completely conformist writing eventually became less restrained showing a gradual self-determination and an ironic evaluation of the poet’s life and choices. The thirties poets have written poems that must be treated as poetic works and not as illustrations of ideological schemas. That part of their creative corpus is relevant to today’s readers. To researchers of Soviet literature and culture, the texts and contexts, demonstrating complicity and attempts to circumvent ideological requirements, are no less important