Rewriting under Ideological Pressure: A. Fadeyev’s The Young Guard

Abstract

The study analyses A. Fadeyev’s novel The Young Guard (1946, 1951), a political command in Stalinist era, inspired by historical events of the Second World War. Although included in the Socialist Realism canon, the novel had a difficult destiny, as it was rewritten under A. Zhdanov’s close assistance after Stalin’s critical reaction to the 1947 film adaptation. The novel may be regarded as a victim of the Soviet myth-making machine and a case of ideological fictionalization, imbued with the main Stalinist motives. The article unveils the tension between the initial creative project inspired by the anti-fascist movement in Krasnodon (1946) and the imposed party direction reflected in the second edition of the novel (1951), which became the official version of the actual events.