Late Socialist Literature

The Second World WarWorld War IIand literatureWorld War IIand Soviet deportations was a watershed for the unification of Soviet culture. This section of the anthology surveys key themes and topics of the Soviet literature of the Khrushchev and Brezhnev years. Abdulla Qahhor’s “The Earthquake” explores the contradictions and traumas of the purges. Other texts translated in this section speak to the role that Central Asian writers played in Cold War cultural diplomacy as well as to the increasing interest of Central Asian writers in exploring national pasts lost in the Soviet era.