Lessons From the USSR: Bengali Travel Writings on Russia in the 1930s

Presenter:

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Abstract

This paper will look into travel literature as a medium of knowledge transfer from Europe to India by examining selected travel writings by Bengalis on Soviet Russia in the 1930s.

In 1930 Rabindranath Tagore undertook the historic journey to USSR and his Rāśiẏār ciṭhi (Letters from Russia), full of praise for the achievements of the newly transformed state, were published soon afterwards amid criticism from the British government and some of Tagore’s Western friends. Letters highlighted common socio-economic challenges of Russia and India as well as presented to Indian readers recent successes of the Soviet Union. Having Letters from Russia as a starting point this paper will focus on travel accounts of two less-known Bengali writers. Saumyendranath Tagore, grand-nephew of Rabindranath and one of pioneers of communism in South Asia, travelled to Russia in the late 1920s and penned two books on his experience Biplabī Ruśiẏā (Revolutionary Russia, later published as Sobhiẏeṭ Ripāblik) and Ẏātrī (Traveller). Nityanarayan Bandyopadhyay (Banerji) wrote his travel account in two language versions, English and Bengali, Russia Today (1934) and Rāśiẏā bhamaṇ (Travel to Russia, 1935; it is not a mere translation). Both authors wrote explicitly with the aim of sharing knowledge about the Soviet system and covered such diverse issues as the condition of peasants and factory workers, education, healthcare, industrial development, gender equality, religious life and more.