Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg
Actually, almost all of the dissident writers, like Solzhenitsyn, tried to get paid for their books. And often, they did, although this year's bestseller could be next year's banned book. If the book was banned, sure, they would rather Russians read it for free than not at all. But then what? Pasternak comes to mind as someone who stopped writing fiction when he could not continue selling his titles in his home country.
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That proves again that people are not very interesting in works that were written for money. The Soviet literature tradition was very rich. It is hard to find good works after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Dissident writing was somewhat interesting because it was dissident but in general they were poorly written. I find more interesting the works of writers who criticized the Soviet system in a subtle way to get their works through censure and at the same time make the point understandable by readers. In fact, they were so successful that the whole idea of the Soviet system became fully discredited in the public mind. It was prime reason why the Soviet Union fell so quickly that even the best western experts could not explain it.