From Hughes to Baldwin: How Soviet Critics Read Black American Literature

About the Lecture: This talk examines Soviet engagement with Black American literature by tracing unexpected continuities between Imperial Russian and Soviet approaches to race and cultural diplomacy. Through close analysis of literary criticism published in Soviet journals from the 1930s through the 1960s, particularly reviews of works by Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and W.E.B. Du Bois in "International Literature" (Internatsional’naia literatura) and "Foreign Literature" (Inostrannaia literatura), this lecture demonstrates how Soviet critics developed formulaic reading practices that served remarkably similar functions to Tsarist-era engagement with American racial issues and western colonialism. Both regimes used American racism as a mirror to reflect their own moral superiority and projected paternalistic leadership over distant oppressed peoples, from Imperial Russia’s relationship with Ethiopia in the nineteenth century to the Soviet Union’s post-war interest in a rapidly decolonizing Africa. The talk reveals how literary criticism functioned as ideological instruction in the Soviet Union, with critics constructing a carefully curated canon of acceptable Black literature that taught readers how to “properly understand” Black American life, reinforcing the state’s anti-racist credentials while serving Cold War propaganda goals. By attending to these continuities rather than taking revolutionary rhetoric at face value, the lecture offers new insights into Soviet cultural politics and the enduring patterns of Russian soft-power projection that remain relevant to understanding contemporary Russian foreign policy. About the Speaker: Jesse Kruschke is a PhD Candidate and Teaching Assistant in the Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic+ at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on the Soviet reception of twentieth-century American literature, with particular attention to how literary journals published, translated, and framed the work of leftist Black