First Congress of Soviet Writers
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The First Congress of Soviet Writers was an all-Union meeting of writers, held in Moscow from August 17 to September 1, 1934, which led to the founding of the Union of Soviet Writers.
It was staged soon after Comintern had switched its popular in favour of forming a popular front with socialist parties and western intellectuals, against the threat from Nazi Germany. The congress has been described as "a high point of a comparatively interlude in the Stalin years."[1] It took place before the Great Purge in the Soviet Union, and after the start of the Nazi book burnings in Germany.
The Congress began with an open air event on 8 August 1934, held by moonlight in the Moscow Park of Culture and Rest, attended by a crowd numbering tens of thousands,[2] and continued for fifteen days in Moscow's Hall of Columns, which was decorated for the occasion by huge portraits of Shakespeare, Balzac, Cervantes, Tolstoy, Gogol, Pushkin and others.[1] There were nearly 600 delegates, plus visiting parties of teachers, actors, factory workers, farm workers, and soldiers.
At the start, delegates were required to elect a Praesidium, a Secretariat, a Credentials Committee and an Editing Committee to manage the congress. In each case, the poet Nikolai Tikhonov moved the motions that created the bodies, and the number and the names of who should be members of each. All his proposals were accepted without dissent. The Praesidium had 52 members, the secretariat had 15.[3]
