Khabarovsk branch of the Union of Writers of Russia during the period of market reforms of the 1990s (based on materials of the State Archive of the Khabarovsk Territory)

Abstract

The article examines the history of the Khabarovsk territorial writers' organization in the first post-Soviet years. The author analyzes the transformational processes associated with the cancellation of state regulation of the literary sphere and the termination of centralized financing of creative unions, the impact of market reforms on the status of a writer in society, explores the crisis of identity and survival practices in changed socio-economic conditions. It was found that after the collapse of the USSR the orderly system built for decades in the sphere of culture during the Soviet period is being replaced by uncertainty and chaos, in the relationship of the writers' organization with the authorities the personal factor becomes decisive. It is noted that writing has deprived the status of a full-fledged profession, the readership was shrinking, local literature was gradually losing its social significance.