ИСТИНА

The Soviet canon that included foreign writers widely read and popular in the USSR was a result of a conscious focused effort and purposeful work of Soviet literary institutions. The case study of Theodore Dreiser, who was criticized as a “petty-bourgeois individualist” in the 1920s but gained reputation of the greatest twentieth-century American classic and the best friend of the Soviet Union by early 1930s, allows to uncover and analyze the mechanism of canon formation, The case study involves an in-depth detailed examination of Dreiser’s Soviet contacts; translations, editions, and publishing strategy that culminated in the twelve-volume collected works in 1950s; literary criticism in periodicals and books that reflect Dreiser’s growing reputation – obviously a response to the changing political agenda and ideological shifts. The paper is based on published materials and unpublished documents from the Russian archives, including Dreiser’s correspondence with Stalin, Soviet literary institutions, periodicals (Pravda, Interlit, etc.), editors, critics; we also use feedback from readers organized and gathered by Goslitizdat – reviews and comments made by “ordinary people” on Dreiser’s views and beliefs, his novels, their plot and characters. Special attention is paid to the ways Dreiser’s works were selected by editors and publishers and presented to the Soviet reader, as well as to Dreiser’s Soviet publications unpublished in the US and known to American audience. This helps to reconstruct the methods applied by agents of the Soviet “literary field” to create and convey a specific Soviet image of Dreiser quite different from his image and reputation at home.