Mediazioni pericolose? I paratesti all’edizione russa di Les Liaisons dangereuses nell’URSS degli anni Trenta

Abstract

This article analyses the editorial and interpretive strategies behind the first Soviet translation of Les liaisons dangereuses (1933), edited by Abram Èfros for the Academia publishing house. By examining contemporary introductions and reviews, the research shows how this libertine novel was “metabolized” by the USSR’s cultural system through sophisticated strategies of ideological validation. The analysis highlights the role of paratexts as essential filters used to justify the publication of “ideologically hostile” yet technically superior texts. Ultimately, Laclos’s work was reframed by the literary critic Abram Èfros as a document of historical realism, functional to the construction of the new Soviet literature.