Narrare la Russia: gli scrittori viaggiatori italiani in Russia nel periodo sovietico

From the twenties of the 20th century on, Soviet Union became one of the favourite destinations of many Italian writers who, during their visits, were charged to interpret and present the new Soviet world to the Italian reader by sending articles to newspapers and magazines, most of which were afterwards published as monographs. The research aims to investigate the reasons that pushed so many intellectuals to visit Russia during the Soviet period and their understanding of such a different reality. Through the references to the historical and political ideologies that might influence the writers’ interpretations of the Russian world, the reconstruction of the travel conditions and the different individual approaches to the Soviet life, the study intends to focus on the point of view of the Italian intellectuals on the USSR and the particular value the reports had in the literary life of each writer and for all the Italian intellectual community. The authors’ monographs and articles collected in the final database, useful for the overall reconstruction of the phenomenon, and the proposal of two unknown documents in the appendix as examples of each writer peculiar narration of Russia, mean to be interesting sources for the thematic research.