Kruzhok Culture: the Meaning of Patronage in the Early Soviet Literary World

Abstract

The formation of a relationship between early Soviet writers and the young Soviet state was conditioned by a pre-Revolutionary culture of patronage and clientelism among Russian literati. This culture enabled them to exert considerable influence over the state as they pushed it, via numerous state-based literary patrons, to provide them with a growing system of welfare and privilege in return for political support. In the literary battles of the late 1920s and early 1930s, Stalin took control over all patronage chains and established himself as the single de facto patron of the literary world. His personality cult emerged from this process.