"Salinger's 'Catcher In The Rye' Resonated Behind Iron Curtain As Well"

[Richard Fiero]

http://www.rferl.org/content/Salingers_Catcher_In_The_Rye_Resonated_Behind_Iron_Curtain_As_Well/1943025.html
By Nikola Krastev
. . .
The book struck a chord with American teenagers who identified with 
the novel's themes of alienation, innocence and rebellion.

But when the novel was translated into Russian during the "Khrushchev 
thaw", its anti-hero's tormented soul-searching also reverberated 
among admirers throughout the Soviet bloc.

Nad propastyu vo rzhi was first published in the Soviet Union in the 
November 1960 issue of the popular literary magazine Inostrannaya 
Literatura (Overseas Literature). The translation became an instant 
sensation, and dog-eared copies of the magazine were passed from 
reader to reader.

Boris Paramonov, a Russian philosopher and contributor to RFE/RL's 
Russian Service, says he and his Russian friends and colleagues 
instantly recognized that it was a book that would endure.

``Soviet readers back then were identifying themselves of course not 
with the American teenager [Caulfield], but they took close to their 
hearts his rebellion against the conventionalism of the society, 
against the alienation of people and the artificial social values 
which one had to follow in their social lives,'' Paramonov says. 
``The rebellion was against the society in general, against its 
hypocritical norms of behavior.''
. . .
"He wrote about very precocious, precious, highly sensitive, gifted 
people who were tormented by their existence," Posnock says. "He made 
it very funny and witty and amusing, but they weren't people who had 
a great deal of durability, and that was part of their charm."