At best. Some were horrendous.
In the '70s the "GULag archipelago" hit the mainstream.
In 1992 I was in a graduate-level Russian program. *Nobody* wanted to teach such literature. Some sympathized with the fallen USSR, some were embarrassed that they had done so.
That was the '70s. Slavistics resisted acknowledging what socialism wrought.
Same in the '80s.
And much of the '90s. By which time focus shifted to under-represented research--women writers, Kazakh/Kirghiz/Turmeni/etc. writers.
By 2005 the previous decades had shaken out.
USSR -- oppressive. The worst estimates of Socialist-era killings were confirmed plus: Stalin/etc. engaged Lloyd's of London to ensure their labor-meat. Like the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade, but 1900s and insured.
Under-presented writers were crap. F? Crap. Kirgiz? Crap. Kazakh? Crap. Why? Logic. Small populations with restrictive horizons. In mm1820s Britain women were educated, but had restricted horzons, and wrote "for the draw"--or under a pseudonym,. In Russia? Nope. *Perhaps* for the drawer.
In '93 I told grad colleagues it was crap. "No, they're undiscovered masterworks, patriarchy!" No, they were crap. Dissetrations written extolling crap. Gotta be embarrassing. (My MA thesis looked at crap Soviet satire; I have a rating on the citations index! But you know, under '70s Soviet repression there's only so much you can do. If you want. "My" author was milquetoast ... but by 1999 he was a shining star. Me? "No, the guy's milquetoast." I'm a slavicist, but linguist. Read broadly. You want want a literary rep of the GULags? Read Sorokin "Kolyma Tales." GULag archipelago? 2nd rate--per Aleksandr S. In the '90s few faculty in Slavic depts willingly taught Solzhenitsyn, It was penury, at best. Sorokin? Internet and Kamkin. Me? Yeah, lit. But I'm published in LI, WCCFL, for ling. Me, pigeon-holes ... Poot fit.
Sorokin is a tough read.(Just ask my literature undergrads.) I feel defiled reading Sorokin. Yet I read him. *ThAT* is an indigenous representation of an indigenous culture. It hurts--it's so not mine. I strive to understand, assimilate it--but it hurts. Seriouslyl hurts. While it hurts, the narrative makes sense. In that framework. And future stories/novels hurt less. But hurt more--as I deal with two concurrent "these values are universal" constraints, so, so at odds. And cope.
US politics? Sorry, do you like Chocolate ice cream with vanilla, or vanilla ice cream with chocolate? What? Each are 50-50. No, they're not opposites."
Next Friday Sorokin has a public talk at UNC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Sorokin
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