Soviet arts chief felled by the Zhdanov anti-formalism campaign, who rebuilt a career as a leading Gogol and Tolstoy scholar
The Politburo resolution of 10 February 1948 declared that "the Committee on Arts Affairs of the USSR Council of Ministers (Comrade Khrapchenko) and the Orgcommittee of the Union of Soviet Composers in essence encouraged the formalist tendency, alien to the Soviet people."
The top cultural administrator of the Stalin era, serving as Chairman of the USSR Committee on Arts Affairs (1939–1948), overseeing all Soviet theatres, music, and fine-arts institutions while sitting on the Stalin Prize committee for arts and literature. He was dismissed in 1948 during the Zhdanov anti-formalism campaign over the opera 'The Great Friendship,' accused of having 'encouraged the formalist tendency.' Reinventing himself as a literary scholar, he became a leading authority on Gogol and Tolstoy, was elected a full member of the Academy of Sciences in 1966, and served as academic-secretary of its Literature and Language Division from 1967 until his death.
Career Timeline
- 1924Graduated Smolensk University; secondary-school teacher
- 1928–1931Lecturer in literary history, Sverdlov Communist University and Voronezh University
- 1931–1936Head of curriculum, Institute of Literature and Art, Communist Academy; Chair of Russian Literature, Institute of Red Professors
- 1938–1939Deputy Chairman, Committee on Arts Affairs, USSR SNK
- 1939–1948Chairman, Committee on Arts Affairs, USSR SNK/SM; member, Stalin Prize Committee for arts and literature
- 1948–1963Senior researcher, Gorky Institute of World Literature, USSR Academy of Sciences
- 1954–1957Editor-in-chief, journal Oktyabr
- 1967–1986Academician-Secretary, Literature and Language Division, USSR Academy of Sciences