Crafting Free Russian-Soviet Literature in Italy
Abstract
In the realm of published works, whether original literary creations or translations, the significance of paratexts and peritexts in shaping a text’s reception cannot be overstated. In the encyclopaedia entry titled Livre (1990) Jacques-Alexandre Breton, Henri-Jean Martin and Jean Toulet observe: “Tous les éléments constitutifs du livre, la lettre, la mise en pages, l’illustration, la reliure peuvent être mobilisés pour renvoyer à des valeurs autres qui exaltent ou occultent sa fonction de communication”. In the famous Seuils (1987), Gérard Genette emphasises the centrality of the cover and peritext as the “lieu du label”, constituting “un trait explicite et localisé” that conveys specific suggestions to the audience. It goes beyond the mere details of the author’s name and the work’s title to convey to the public an overarching idea. It is precisely within this conceptual framework that the series of the Italian publisher Jaca Book Di fronte e attraverso [In front and across] has thrived. This series, initiated in 1977 with the release of Lidia Chukovskaia’s tamizdat novel La casa deserta [The Deserted House], stands as Jaca Book’s inaugural venture into Soviet and Russian dissent literature. Since its inception, it has been dedicated to publishing literary texts emerging from Soviet and Russian dissent. The series stands as a testament to the profound impact of paratextual and peritextual elements in shaping both narrative and reception. The publications in the series are devoted to a wide range of texts belonging to what I define as “free Russian-Soviet literature,” adopting the category formulated by Iurii Mal’tsev in the title of his renowned tamizdat volume Vol’naia russkaia literatura (1976). This definition does not refer solely to unofficial or dissident literature (or other similar expressions that will be discussed in this paper), but to the entire body of independent literary production — that which stands apart from the official canon of Socialist Realism.