Le Studio franco-russe (1929-1931)

Abstract

The Studio franco-russe, 1929-1931 The article examines the history and implications of the Studio franco-russe, an initiative of regular intellectual and cultural exchanges between the Russian émigré writers and thinkers who took refuge in France after the Bolshevik coup of 1917 and their French col- leagues, which took place in the inter-war Paris at the time of a radical shift in European ideological paradigms. Created by the younger artistic generation of Russian exiles in an effort to span the gap separating their creative activity from the French cultural circles, the Studio became a major venue of intellectual commerce, where a wide array of Russian and French cultural figures were united in open and public debates on the esthetic, philosophical, and moral dilemmas of the day. Archival documents and contemporary critical accounts which shed light on the work of the Studio, as well as the stenographic records of its fourteen meetings allow a relatively faithful reconstruction and analysis of an intellectual adventure unprecedented in the annals of Russian-French cultural interaction.

Finding Irène Némirovsky

“…9. The meetings of the Studio franco-russe were transcribed and the reports published in the Cahiers de la Quinzaine between 1929 and 1931 (Livak, 2004 gives full bibliographical details). Némirovsky's name does not figure in any of the transcripts, and she does not mention the Studio franco-russe in interviews.…”

“…Therefore, although Némirovsky shared the anti-bolshevism of the Russian émigré writers and was of the same generation, she had little interest in their project. She took no part in the debates of the Studio franco-russe where the 'Paris note' aesthetic of the émigrés was discussed (see Livak, 2004 andBérard-Zarzycka, 1989). 9 When asked by Frédéric Lefèvre in June 1933 whether the Revolution had had an effect on Russian literature, she revealed total ignorance of the textual production and the theoretical debates of both Russian émigré literature and Soviet socialist realism, replying: 'J'ai peur d'être injuste en parlant de la nouvelle littérature russe.…”