Forms of temporality of Soviet book publishing
On October 4, 2023, the first seminar of our Laboratory this academic year was held on the topic "Editorial portfolio and other forms of temporality of Soviet book publishing: on the material of the Molodaya Gvardiya publishing house of the late 1950s - early 1970s".
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The speaker was Maksim Lukin, an Research Assistant at the ILSIR, and the discussant was Galina Orlova, Associate Professor at the HSE School of History.
The seminar was devoted to discussing issues related to the temporal organization of Soviet book publishing during the "thaw" period. Book publishing was one of the main and symbolically significant cultural institutions of the USSR; nevertheless, the principles of the institutional organization of this process have been studied quite fragmentally.
Based on the concepts of archival anthropology by Ann Stoler and social analysis of timescapes by Barbara Adam, the report analyzes the role of key documents (publishing plans, contracts, editorial "portfolios") in the time management of one of the largest Soviet publishing houses – the Young Guard. During the speech, the logic of the book publishing plan formation and the institutional principles of editorial work with authors were reconstructed; the stages of the "path" of the text from the author's manuscript to the published book.
The case of the delayed publication of the collection of the Strugatsky brothers "Unassigned meetings" serves to illustrate the repressive use of management mechanisms (delays in the execution of the contract, references to the "crowded portfolio") in relation to politically objectionable authors. The speakers were shown that the temporality of Soviet book publishing was characterized by a conflict between planning mechanisms and practice caused by a shortage of resources and changing political circumstances.
The discussant, Galina Orlova, noted the development of research on temporality in recent years, the connection between the temporal organization of societies and the problems of social integration.
The discussant suggested to reflect on temporal tactics in people's relations with institutions and to increase attention to the "paper" mechanisms of administration of the publishing process in the report. The analysis of the temporality of book publishing proposed in the report may be of interest for understanding the legacy of literary-centered Soviet culture in modern society.
In the further discussion, the role of material carriers (diaries, calendars) in the study of temporality, the possibility of transferring foreign management technologies in the late USSR, and the features of interviews analyzed in the report were discussed.
