DOI 10.51255/2311–603X_2025_3_212
A. V. Lomakin. From Ilyich to Kumach: the Poetic Design of Soviet Holidays on the Air of Leningrad Radio in the 1950s and 1970s // Petersburg Historical Journal, no. 3, 2025, pp. 212–223
Abstract:
The article is devoted to specific works of fiction — poems written for the public holidays of May
1 and November 7 and played on holiday radio broadcasts in Leningrad in the 1950s and 1970s. Based on the documents of the Central State Archive of Literature and Art of St. Petersburg, the thematic diversity of festive poetry is studied, its functions in festive narratives and the Soviet holiday as a whole are revealed, special attention is paid to the motivation of writers and poets when fulfilling a state order to create poetic agitation. Poetry “on occasion”, written for the Leningrad radio committee by local poets, was most often dedicated to V. I. Lenin, the Great October Socialist Revolution, Leningrad, and the Communist Party. The poems not only complemented the announcers’ comments about the parades and demonstrations on the Palace Square, created a festive mood, but also carried a certain ideological load and performed an educational function. At the same time, these works were usually performed without specifying the authorship, and later the authors did not include them in their printed collections. The participation of poets and writers in the creation of artistic texts for radio broadcasts can be considered a kind of fulfillment of a state order, in which each individual author could have his own motivation, whether it was establishing relations with the authorities or making easy money.
Key words: Soviet holidays, May Day, anniversaries of the Revolution, October Revolution, Leningrad, radio, propaganda, agitation, Soviet literature, Soviet poetry, Soviet writers.
Author:
Lomakin, Alexander Vladimirovich — assistant at the Department of History of Culture, State and Law Faculty of Humanities, St. Petersburg State Electrotechnical University “LETI”; postgraduate student of Departments of Modern History of Russia Institute of History of St. Petersburg University (St. Petersburg, Russia).
E-mail: lloomm_98@mail.ru
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