Theodore Dreiser holds an honored place in American literature as one of the pioneers of new artistic paths.
In 1921, six years before his journey to the Soviet Union, Dreiser offered Russian theaters his play The Hand of the Potter, but they lacked the funds to acquire it. However, when Dreiser’s collected works were published in the USSR in 1926, he, along with other prominent literary figures, was invited to visit the country.
At that time, diplomatic relations between the USSR and the United States did not yet exist, so Dreiser had to obtain a visa at the Soviet political mission in Berlin. After completing the formalities, he traveled across the country. From November 1927 to January 1928, he visited Kyiv, Leningrad, Kharkiv, Rostov-on-Don, Baku, Tbilisi, and Odesa, the latter being the final city on his itinerary.
Kyiv reminded the writer of Paris with its beautiful streets, shop windows, and elegantly dressed women. He also visited new factories, the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, and the Shevchenko Museum. In Kharkiv, he attended the opera Carmen performed in Ukrainian. Dreiser later noted that he was entirely free to choose the places he visited and the people he spoke with.
In early January 1928, Dreiser arrived in Odesa. He stayed at one of the city’s most luxurious hotels, the Bristol. On the occasion of the writer’s visit—then relatively unknown to Odesa readers—the newspaper Izvestiya Odes’kogo okruzhkoma KP(b)U published a long article about his literary path:
"Every Dreiser novel," the newspaper noted, "is a solid cross-section of unadorned American reality. Dreiser’s works primarily show the individual only as a part of the whole, as one piece of the greater picture."
On January 9, 1928, Dreiser received a one-month residence permit for foreigners and spent several more days exploring the Black Sea city.
"I hope to leave Odesa by January 10—and around January 20 depart from Paris or London to New York," Dreiser wrote in a letter home.
On January 13, 1928, the American writer departed Odesa for Istanbul.
Later, Dreiser’s book Dreiser Looks at Russia was published, critical of the young Soviet regime, but the complete edition only appeared in 1998.
Dreiser was accompanied by his secretary and translator, Ruth Kennell: an American socialist who in 1922 arrived in Kemerovo (Siberia) with her pastor husband, where 600 European and American enthusiasts, under agreement with the Soviet government, established an Autonomous Industrial Column. In 1969, her book Theodore Dreiser and the Soviet Union. 1927–1945. Eyewitness Chronicle was published in New York, and 25 years later, the Russian Diaries of Dreiser were published by the University of Pennsylvania.