> I am a citizen of the sentence first and foremost, and so when I read Pelevin uncorking a massive, soaring line from within Omon’s young consciousness, I did not think: “does this qualify as Soviet if it’s about the Soviet space program but it’s published in 1991?”
> PATRICK MCGINTY (...) teaches in the Department of Languages, Literatures, Cultures, and Writing at Slippery Rock University
That strongly influences, actually directly shapes, what works does the writer or the artist produces.
You're putting the cart before the horse.
Soviet Union's case is an exception to this: The Soviets were literally brainwashed by Hollywood movies and bootleg CIA video tapes to believe that everybody in the capitalist west lived like how the rich lived in Manhattan. They thought that they would keep all the good stuff from socialism (guaranteed jobs, reasonable pay, housing, free education, higher education, healthcare, reasonable retirement etc) but would also get the consumerism and the glamor depicted in Hollywood movies. They learned that things don't work that way.
Even until recently, there were Russians who still didn't know that there were homeless in the US. The Internet has likely changed that though...
And specifically, Poland was occupied by Soviet long enough to deserve not tonhave own art attributes to them.
Also, literature before revolutions and after them is much different. Topics, style of writing, who could get published or become famous are all much different. You can't attribute to Soviet what was done after Soviet broke up.
It's a touchy subject, and the recent Russian invasion explains why.
Eastern European writers did contribute a sizeable bookshelf of writings about bright space communist future, until it began to turn sour. One lesser-known one who I remember from my childhood is Pavel Vezhinov's Death of Ajax.
UPD: Maybe we should use Eastern Bloc Science Fiction as a term?
One like Democracy and Republic and the literal translation is "Council".
So, you can surely be democratic outside of (hypothetical) Democratic Union, much like you may be soviet outside of USSR.
> Lem was born in 1921 in Lwów, interwar Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine)
> In 1945, Lwow was annexed into the Soviet Ukraine, and the family, along with many other Polish citizens, was resettled to Kraków, where Lem, at his father's insistence, took up medical studies at the Jagiellonian University.
> After the war, under the Polish People's Republic (officially declared in 1952), the intellectual and academic community of Kraków came under complete political control. The universities were soon deprived of printing rights and autonomy.[79] The Stalinist government of Poland ordered the construction of the country's largest steel mill in the newly-created suburb of Nowa Huta.[80] The creation of the giant Lenin Steelworks (now Sendzimir Steelworks owned by Mittal) sealed Kraków's transformation from a university city into an industrial centre.
It's a stretch, but not by much, to consider Lem as someone who spent time under the Soviet umbrella.
For most Polish people this would be quite an insult even disregarding current war waged by russia just next to them, which is pretty much impossible to ignore if you live there.
In reality, for as late as 1939 the main differences were language and religion, and considerable chunk of rural population considered themselves "locals" not linking with nation-state idea.
This reflects on Commonwealth being rather multi-ethnic and Austro-Hungarian occupation and repression changing little on the areas they took.
Modern states in the region are real, but contingent, and shouldn't falsely be projected backwards through history.
Clearly.
There is plenty of information regarding history of Lviv and this region in general. It's long and sad, tragic and sometimes beautiful but never simple.
Besides, I found that most people who feign ignorance know history very well and use it for their own agenda. If you know what to search in someone post history it becomes more or less obvious.
The phrase "Soviet Writer" can be treated more loosely though and can be taken to embrace those that wrote about or had their writing influenced by Soviet events and it's difficult to imagine Lem not being aware of nor affected by the social upheaval radiating out from the formation of the USSR.
His identity is Polish, his writing contains elements that stem from | react to Soviet history and culture .. it's hard to write and not be affected by loud neighbours that raid your kitchen and stomp on your belongings.
But it did not go unnoticed. I remember very particular Russian TV-series about Arctic Explorers on Finnish TV, which censored scenes where the crew ignored stupid and repulsive Communist Party official.