Stylistic Issues in Soviet Literature of the 1930s in Defense Criticism

The article presents an analysis of the opinions expressed by defense critics of the 1930s about the style of contemporary authors. These critical works appeared on the pages of magazines such as “Zalp”, “LOKAF”, and “Znamya”. The critical works focused on three main aspects: 1) providing guidance to novice authors, 2) identifying flaws such as clichédness or, conversely, an over-literary style, and 3) establishing attitudes towards formalism. The specific nature of the research topic, which focuses on critical works on military subjects published in these journals, means that the ideological component plays a significant role in these articles. This is a novel aspect of the research, as it analyzes the opinions of these critics on the style of authors in relation to their stance on formalism. All critics agreed that it was necessary to teach writers to write, to find a balance between the template and the “literary” style, and in relation to formalism, there were two opposing tendencies: one was to oppose formal experiments, and the other was to find a compromise between ideological content and form. This form was not an end in itself, but rather a tool to strengthen the content of the text. Even after the defeat of formalism, defensive criticism actively used its tools, referring to both modern and classic texts. The material demonstrates that critics did not abandon formal experiments even after M. Gorky’s call for “purity of language”. The presented conclusions contribute to a deeper understanding of general trends in literary criticism. The relevance of this work lies in broadening our understanding of the literary process in the 1930s.