CULTURAL LIBERALIZATION DURING THE KHRUSHCHEV THAW AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF SOVIET LITERATURE: A NARRATIVE REVIEW

Abstract

This article presents a qualitative analysis of scholarly interpretations of the "Khrushchev Thaw" (mid-1950s to mid-1960s) and its impact on Soviet literature. The subject of the study is the interrelationship between cultural liberalization, literary institutions, and the transformation of artistic expression during the "Thaw"—a period characterized as a structurally unstable and politically constrained form of the restructuring of Soviet culture. Drawing on contemporary and historical literary scholarship, the article examines the transition from the ideological rigidity of the Stalin era—characterized by the dominance of Socialist Realism, institutional control, and the suppression of individual self-expression—to the more flexible, yet still constrained, cultural environment that emerged following Stalin’s death in 1953 and Nikita Khrushchev’s denunciation of the cult of personality in 1956. The article argues that the "Thaw" fostered significant changes in Soviet literature, including the abandonment of the principle of "conflictlessness," the return of the lyrical "I," a heightened interest in historical trauma and everyday life, and the emergence of more ambiguous narrative forms and morally complex characters. The study revealed that the cultural significance of the "Khrushchev Thaw" lay not in the elimination of ideological control, but in a partial re-evaluation of the function of literature within Soviet culture and the formation of a fragile model of "permitted dissent".