The Russian Association of Proletarian Writers, also known under its transliterated abbreviation RAPP () was an official creative union in the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

established in January 1925."RAPP"
in Russian '' Literary Encyclopedia'' (1929-1939) Among its stated purposes was "to scourge and chastise in the name of the

Party A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a Hospitality, host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will oft ...

", i.e., effectively encouraging

censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governmen ...

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

on ideological grounds. It became notorious for its enthusiastic attacks on writers who failed to fit the RAPP's definition of the "true Soviet writer", which have eventually earned criticism from the leadership of the

Bolshevik Party The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...

. Among its first targets were

Yevgeny Zamyatin Yevgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin ( rus, Евге́ний Ива́нович Замя́тин, p=jɪvˈɡʲenʲɪj ɪˈvanəvʲɪdʑ zɐˈmʲætʲɪn; – 10 March 1937), sometimes anglicized as Eugene Zamyatin, was a Russian author of science fictio ...

and

Boris Pilnyak Boris Andreyevich Pilnyak (''né'' Vogau ; – April 21, 1938) was a Russian and Soviet writer who was executed by the Soviet Union on false claims of plotting to kill Joseph Stalin and Nikolay Yezhov. Biography He was born Boris Andreyevich V ...

"Understanding

Boris Pasternak Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (30 May 1960) was a Russian and Soviet poet, novelist, composer, and literary translator. Composed in 1917, Pasternak's first book of poems, ''My Sister, Life'', was published in Berlin in 1922 and soon became an imp ...

, Larissa Rudova (1997)
p. 64
/ref> and both pro and anti-Bolshevik writers were targeted, notably including

Mikhail Bulgakov Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov ( ; rus, links=no, Михаил Афанасьевич Булгаков, p=mʲɪxɐˈil ɐfɐˈnasʲjɪvʲɪdʑ bʊlˈɡakəf; – 10 March 1940) was a Russian and Soviet novelist and playwright. His novel ''The M ...

Maxim Gorki Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (; ), was a Russian and Soviet writer and proponent of socialism. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Before his success as an auth ...

Vladimir Mayakovsky Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky ( – 14 April 1930) was a Russian poet, playwright, artist, and actor. During his early, Russian Revolution, pre-Revolution period leading into 1917, Mayakovsky became renowned as a prominent figure of the Ru ...

, and Alexey Tolstoy. The administration of RAPP consisted of a number of Soviet writers and literary critics. Among them were

Leopold Averbakh Leopold Leonidovich Averbakh (Russian: Леопо́льд Леони́дович Аверба́х; 8 March 1903 – 14 August 1937) was a Soviet literary critic, who was the head of the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) in the 1 ...

(founder and general secretary), Vladimir Kirshon, Dmitry Furmanov, Alexander Fadeyev, Alexei Selivanovskiy,

Vladimir Stavsky Vladimir Petrovich Stavsky (Владимир Петрович Ставский; born Kirpichnikov, Кирпичников; 30 July 1900 – 14 November 1943) was a Soviet Russian writer, editor (in 1937–1941, of ''Novy Mir'') and literary admin ...

, Yuri Libedinskiy, Fyodor Panferov, Vladimir Yermilov, and others. In April 1932, RAPP, together with other creative unions such as

Proletkult Proletkult ( rus, Пролетку́льт, p=prəlʲɪtˈkulʲt), a portmanteau of the Russian words "proletarskaya kultura" ( proletarian culture), was an experimental Soviet artistic institution that arose in conjunction with the Russian Revol ...

and the

Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians The Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians or RAPM () was a musicians' creative union of the early Soviet period. It was founded in June 1923, by Lev Shul'gin, Aleksei Sergeev, and David Chernomoridikov. RAPM's members advocated "mass songs" ...

, was disbanded and the

Union of Soviet Writers The Union of Soviet Writers, USSR Union of Writers, or Soviet Union of Writers () was a creative union of professional writers in the Soviet Union. It was founded in 1934 on the initiative of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (1932) a ...

was established instead.

References

External links

"Uncivil War: Fyodor Gladkov & the Smithy vs. RAPP"
fro
SovLit.net

in Literary Encyclopedia (in Russian) Soviet literature Russian writers' organizations Civic and political organizations based in the Soviet Union Organizations established in 1925 20th-century Russian literature {{soviet-stub 1925 establishments in the Soviet Union 1932 disestablishments in the Soviet Union