Abstract

The arguments over whether the "work-situation theme" in the arts was necessary always appeared to me to be both naive and lacking in content. Today it would seem that no one any longer doubts that it is necessary and indispensable. And I am in full agreement with Ianov's remarks in opening today's gathering: a literature that shamefacedly dodges the "work-situation theme" condemns itself to alienation from life and from its hero of today. How could it be otherwise? After all, we all live in one work group or another. I emphasize that we do not merely smelt steel, assemble mechanisms, and conduct planning meetings but live - rejoice, grow excited, suffer. And what I am thinking of here is not the time, packed to the utmost, that must be spent on the job, but of the fact that after I have come home, I continue emotionally to be in the factory atmosphere for a long time