A Russian journal
by John Steinbeck · first published 1948
5mentions
1recommended by
3HN commenters
2019–2023first – last mentioned
33% recommend33% neutral33% critical
Narration of author's travel through Russia.
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John Steinbeck, in his travel book, A Russian Journal (1948) has a great quote about the perception of cameras among people who have been through war: There was some reluctance about letting a cameraman into the Soviet Union, and none about letting me in,…
on “The Origins of Battlefield Photography as Military Intelligence” ↗…really shook my perception of his "journalistic" approach when I learned that Travels with Charley was almost entirely made up. Makes me wonder how much literary license he used in other books like A Russian Journal.
on “The Grapes of Wrath was banned in the USSR because showed poor people had cars” ↗…think for yourself, the more dangerous you were to the party. It's not an accident that people are scared to criticize these governments. That's where John Steinbeck really fucked up in his book the Russian Journal. Saying "Oh, do you know anyone that's disappeared because of the soviet regime". If you don't know any Russians (at the time)... I mean, duh, you're probably not going to. But talk to even one dissident…
on “'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology” ↗It's not unlikely that Stalin would personally have been involved. Steinbeck traveled to the USSR just prior 1948, writing A Russian Journal[1] which portrayed the Soviet Union in a moderately positive light. Given Steinbeck's fame and the extremely limited amount of travel US Citizens did the US at this time it's likely Stalin knew about…
on “The Grapes of Wrath was banned in the USSR because showed poor people had cars” ↗Running for weeks is a very short run! Something happened! And Steinbeck was famous in Russia for releasing his fairly positive "A Russian Journal" around the same time. It's impossible to know who exactly ordered it, but it is likely Stalin was aware of it being shown.
on “The Grapes of Wrath was banned in the USSR because showed poor people had cars” ↗