Reports from behind the “Red Curtain.” Experiencing the Border in Soviet Russia: Antoni Słonimski, Moja podróż do Rosji (1932) and Ante Ciliga U velike laži (1938)
Journal: Poznańskie Studia Slawistyczne
Year: 2025

This article presents a comparative analysis of the personal experiences and impressions of 1930s Russia, as recounted by two figures: A. Słonimski, the Polish poet, editor, and founder of the influential literary group “Skamander,” and A. Ciliga, a Croatian writer and former communist. Ciliga, an unruly Istrian, arrives in the “paradise of socialist progress” as a privileged foreign communist intellectual and university lecturer, only to end up imprisoned in the infamous Gulag system. In contra