Preface as a “pretext” in the communist ideological system (case study – Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence)

Abstract

Abstract: “The purpose of this book is...”- this is how prefaces usually develop. Therefore, it is clear from the very beginning that a preface is a subjective opinion imposed by someone who makes a literary assessment of a book. As a rule, this opinion may belong to the author, reviewer, translator or a third party. It may be also approached as a meta-text with the role to elucidate and decipher the wheels within wheels of a paper. However, there are cases when the scope of a preface divagates and becomes a pretext. When the preface becomes a pretext – as a reason given in justification of a course of action that is not the real reason – the writer of preface will disseminate preconceived ideas, codes and manipulating messages. When the preface becomes a pretext – as text that comes before other text – we speak about a meta-text with an informative role. The communist regime took advantage of preface in both cases to filter literature through its ideology and keep it clean from “noxious” foreign elements. Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence was not an exception. Consequently, the ideology functioned in two stages in this case: first – by prohibiting this book until the 90s in all the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and second – by transforming it into an erotic and vulgar piece of literature. Therefore, this paper aims at observing the filtering mechanism of communist ideology in Lawrence’s work.