One for All, All Against One: The Party Assembly in Slavic Literary Discourse

Abstract

This essay presents a concise overview of the evolution of partisanship among Slavic peoples, highlighting the ideological transformations and adaptations of the musketeer motto Un pour tous, tous pour un (One for all, all for one) from Alexandre Dumas père’s The Three Musketeers. The essay traces how this motto is refracted through the lens of party assemblies and the practices of comradely criticism and self-criticism as depicted in the literary traditions of several Slavic nations. The communist gatherings examined here reflect the party-centric nature of society from the end of the First World War until the close of the Cold War. The similarities among the literary portrayals of such assemblies arise from both typological convergence and cultural contact. The political system imposed by the Soviet Union clearly encouraged many Slavic writers either to reproduce Soviet models directly or to ‘creatively’ adapt them. The essay also investigates how communist ideology appropriated and secularised ecclesiastical structures and dogma, with party criticism and self-criticism often echoing – albeit in distorted form – Christian practices of confession and repentance.

Original title in Bulgarian: "Един за всички, всички срещу един: партийното събрание в славянската художествена словесност"