The frozen thaw: The volatile relationship between Khrushchev and the literary intelligentsia

The relationship between the Russian government, literary intelligentsia, and readership has often been complex. The government has subjected Russian authors to censorship and harsh cultural policies, demanding that they adhere to strict propagandistic measures outlined by the Party. Similarly, government officials have demanded readers to respond to prose in a particular manner, creating a complex web of communication among the governors and the governed. Under Nikita Khrushchev's regime, this communication reached a feverish pitch, demanding stringent adherence by authors and readers to wavering cultural views. This thesis examines how the Russian readership viewed prose written during Khrushchev's thaw, the so-called liberalization of the arts, and how their responses illustrate the emergence of an awakened social consciousness. This thesis also explores Khrushchev's volatile cultural policies towards two Russian authors -- Boris Pasternak and Alexander Solzhenitsyn.;The primary sources used to analyze the Russian public's response to thaw literature concentrates chiefly on articles and letters written to editors of Russian periodicals -- more specifically in Literaturnaya Gazeta, Pravda, and samizdat. The primary documents that illustrate Khrushchev's cultural policies during the thaw include his speeches, memoirs, documented proceedings from the Twentieth and Twenty-Second Congresses of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), legislative acts, press conferences, and articles. Secondary sources examined focus on a biography of Khrushchev written by Sergei Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev's son, in addition to other accounts by Khrushchev's close cultural advisors.;In order to provide necessary background on the Russian authors, the thesis begins with an examination of the birth and development of the Russian literary intelligentsia. A discussion of the intelligentsia's evolution from an intellectual elite to a politically charged social stratum outlines what future role the intelligentsia played in Khrushchev's thaw. The chosen literary texts analyzed in this thesis are written by Boris Pasternak and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Case studies of these individual intellectuals mainly focus on the readers' responses to their prose in order to compare the Russian readership's view of thaw literature to that of Khrushchev. An examination of these case studies demonstrates that while Khrushchev's thaw began as an antidote to the prior oppressive relationship between the government and the arts, it frequently relapsed into the very behavior it attempted to avoid.;This thesis concludes that the Russian readership developed a newfound sense of social consciousness in response to both thaw literature and Khrushchev's vacillating cultural policies. After all, readers decided to take literary critiques into their own hands and refused to meekly agree with the judgments rendered by the Soviet government and press.