Village Prose Writers and the Question of Siberian Cultural Identity

Siberian writers, settings, themes, and regional identity were the driving forces behind Russian Village Prose (derevenskaia proza), the largest and most coherent body of ideologically and aesthetically significant literature published in the Soviet Union during the three decades between Stalin’s death and the beginning of glasnost. Village Prose is often simply identified as a fiercely patriotic and aggressively provincial literature from and about Siberia. Although this definition both misses and exaggerates a great deal, it does reflect something of the essence of derevenskaia proza, where it came from in the thaw period, and what it evolved into after 1985.