Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Writing the Nation After Stalin analyzes the emergence of ethnic nationalism in Soviet literature in the decades preceding the breakup of the USSR in 1991. After the death of Stalin, a multinational group of Soviet writers from villages developed a rural nationalist ideology in their literary works. Analyzing the careers of these writers through archival and published sources, the book demonstrates that nationalism emerged from within Soviet national cultural institutions founded in the Stalin era to control writers. This nationalist ideology shifted the source of truth and morality in Soviet society from the Communist Party to the traditional village and portrayed both village and nation as threatened by the Soviet state. Writing the Nation After Stalin shows how these intellectual developments had their roots in writers’ efforts to challenge Stalinist policies toward the peasantry. In the late 1980s, several village writers became leaders in national movements that demanded independence from the Soviet state. The book’s approach is both comparative and transnational, tracing the circulation of people and ideas across the Soviet Union while simultaneously comparing four different Soviet republics (Armenia, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine). Ultimately, Writing the Nation After Stalin gives readers a greater understanding of how the Soviet Union transformed into fifteen nation-states.</jats:p>