The Representation of the African American as Colonial Oppressed in Texts of the Soviet Interwar Years

Abstract

The article provides an overview of the representation of the African American in Soviet publications, looking both at works by Soviet writers and at works by African Americans. It discusses an evolution in the representation of both Africans and African Americans in published texts from prerevolutionary exoticist conventions, as in Pierre Loti, or emphasis on their spirituality, as in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, to emphasizing their debased position and the class nature of their oppression. The article discusses the impact of developments in Soviet policies and ideology on this evolution, such as the “Black Belt” doctrine of the Comintern, and traces their impact in works by Claude McKay and Richard Wright, and also in the travelogues of Soviet visitors to the United States, such as Boris Pil'niak, and Il'ia Il'f and Evgeny Petrov.