Kafka in Russia

Kafka’s recent entry into Russia has a history of its own. For several decades the visionary from Prague belonged—theoretically he still belongs—to the Unholy Trinity of Proust, Joyce, and Kafka. This Trinity has been condemned in Russia on every possible occasion, until it became a classical negative cliche, a literary equivalent to the Trotsky-Zinoviev-Bukharin bloc.

The Soviet inquisitors did not, of course, read the books they designated for burning. But their co-religionists in the West, who did read Kafka, also wanted to burn them. In 1946 the Paris Communist weekly Action published answers to the question “Should Kafka’s Books Be Burned?” The argument of Action ran: Kafka’s gloomy pessimism...