გალაკტიონ ტაბიძე და 40-იანი წლების იდეოლოგიური კრიტიკა

Abstract

After the end of World War II, the Soviet government launched a new ideological campaign in the field of literature and art. The party elite decided to re-intensify the relatively weakened ideological control during the war and to stop any, even the slightest, protest or dissatisfaction with the regime. On August 14, 1946, the Central Committee of the Communist Party issued a special resolution on the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad, which sharply criticized the editorial policy of the publications for publishing ideologically harmful and unacceptable material. On the second day, after the adoption of the resolution, Andrei Zhdanov, the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, made a special speech at the Congress of Party Assets, which expanded and supplemented the mentioned party directive with concrete artistic material. This decree immediately acquired a guiding meaning in the fi eld of ideology. Throughout the Soviet Union, a kind of revision of artistic productions began and the search for ideological “failures” in the works of famous or novice authors. Inspired by the party decree, Georgian Soviet critics also began to search for ideological flaws in the works of Georgian writers. The sharpness of the criticism indirectly reached Galaktion, which led to the fact that some writers used Zhdanov’s report and the decision of the party’s central committee as a tool of personal revenge. In 1947, the newspaper Literature and Art published a letter by the famous poet and playwright Sandro Shanshiashvili entitled “Talents and Admirers”, which, according to the author, was based on Andrei Zhdanov’s famous report. Specifi cally, Shanshiashvili’s letter was directed against Soviet critics Besarion Zhgenti and Shalva Radian, who were accused of misinterpreting the work of Galaktion Tabidze and Ioseb Grishashvili. Shanshiashvili argues with B. Zhgenti in the evaluation of Galaktion’s pre-revolutionary poetry. He finds the critic’s view that “the second book of Galaktion Tabidze’s poems is an incomparable treasure of Georgian poetry of the pre-revolutionary period” unacceptable and points out that Galaktion’s decadence should not be silenced. Zhdanov’s report and the party resolution were also used by the current chairman of the Writers’ Union, Simon Chikovani, to launch an indirect attack on Galaktion. In 1947 he delivered a special speech at the Plenum of the Board of the Union of Soviet Writers of Georgia. Chikovani confronted Sergi Chilaia, who was also accused of hiding Galaktion’s decadent “sins”. According to Simon Chikovani, the main source of Galakton Tabidze’s early work is to be found not in the traditions of national literature, but in the poetry of European decadence. According to the critic, Galaktion was “a real decadent before the revolution”. In his report, Simon Chikovani tried to strongly discourage Sergi Chilaia from trying to rehabilitate Galaktion’s work before the revolution.