“Uljalaevščina” I. Sel’vinskogo v 1924–1927 gg. Rekonstrukcija dopečatnoj istorii poėmy na osnove archivnych istočnikov [Uljalaevščina di Sel’vinskij negli anni 1924-1927. Ricostruzione della storia prestampa del poema sulla base delle fonti d’archivio]

A detailed reconstruction of the history behind the creation and publication of I. Sel'vinskij’s Uljalaevščina, a narrative poem about the Russian civil war in the Urals, following the 1917 revolution. Composed in 1924, Sel'vinskij was first published in 1927 and then underwent numerous alterations by Sel'vinskij, to a detrimental effect. The 1920s–1930s saw four publications of the poem as a separate book; the poem was considered a masterpiece of Sel'vinskij’s and of contemporary Soviet poetic output in general. However, its subsequent publications in the 1930s were unofficially vetoed up until the early Thaw years, when, in 1956, the poem was published again upon radical redrafting by the author. The scholar makes a meticulous comparison between various archive versions of Uljalaevščina, comments on textual juxtapositions and finds that the poem, conceived as a ‘verse novel’ about the Russian civil war and the Bolshevik pillaging of rural settlements during the food confiscation campaign (prodrazvyorstka), was intentionally rewritten by Sel'vinskij as an exemplary Soviet epic, which could not but damage the poem’s quality and intonation.