Affirmation of socialist realism. Soviet painting of socialist realism
Socialist realism is a creative method of literature and art of the 20th century, the cognitive sphere of which was limited and regulated by the task of reflecting the processes of reorganization of the world in the light of the communist ideal and Marxist-Leninist ideology.
Goals of socialist realism
Socialist realism is the main officially (at the state level) recognized method of Soviet literature and art, the purpose of which is to capture the stages of the construction of Soviet socialist society and its “movement towards communism.” Over the course of half a century of existence in all developed literatures of the world, socialist realism sought to take a leading position in the artistic life of the era, contrasting its (supposedly the only true) aesthetic principles (the principle of party membership, nationality, historical optimism, socialist humanism, internationalism) to all other ideological and artistic principles.
History of origin
The domestic theory of socialist realism originates from “Fundamentals of Positive Aesthetics” (1904) by A.V. Lunacharsky, where art is guided not by what is, but by what should be, and creativity is equated with ideology. In 1909, Lunacharsky was one of the first to call the story “Mother” (1906-07) and the play “Enemies” (1906) by M. Gorky “serious works of a social type,” “significant works, the significance of which in the development of proletarian art will someday be taken into account” (Literary Decay , 1909. Book 2). The critic was the first to draw attention to the Leninist principle of party membership as determinant in the construction of socialist culture (article “Lenin” Literary Encyclopedia, 1932. Volume 6).
The term “Socialist realism” first appeared in the editorial of the “Literary Gazette” dated May 23, 1932 (author I.M. Gronsky). J.V. Stalin repeated it at a meeting with writers at Gorky on October 26 of the same year, and from that moment the concept became widespread. In February 1933, Lunacharsky, in a report on the tasks of Soviet drama, emphasized that socialist realism “is thoroughly devoted to the struggle, it is a builder through and through, it is confident in the communist future of humanity, it believes in the strength of the proletariat, its party and leaders” (Lunacharsky A.V. Articles about Soviet literature, 1958).
The difference between socialist realism and bourgeois realism
At the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers (1934), the originality of the method of socialist realism was substantiated by A.A. Zhdanov, N.I. Bukharin, Gorky and A.A. Fadeev. The political component of Soviet literature was emphasized by Bukharin, who pointed out that socialist realism “differs from simple realism in that it inevitably places in the center of attention the image of the construction of socialism, the struggle of the proletariat, the new man and all the complex “connections and mediations” of the great historical process of our time... Stylistic features , distinguishing socialist realism from bourgeois... are closely related to the content of the material and the goals of the volitional order, dictated by the class position of the proletariat" (First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers. Verbatim report, 1934).
Fadeev supported the idea expressed earlier by Gorky that, unlike “the old realism - critical... our, socialist, realism is affirming. Zhdanov’s speech, his formulations: “depict reality in its revolutionary development”; “At the same time, the truthfulness and historical specificity of the artistic depiction must be combined with the task of ideological reworking and education of working people in the spirit of socialism,” formed the basis of the definition given in the Charter of the Union of Soviet Writers.
His statement that “revolutionary romanticism should be included in literary creativity as an integral part” of socialist realism was also programmatic (ibid.). On the eve of the congress that legitimized the term, the search for its defining principles was qualified as “The Struggle for the Method” - under this title one of the Rappov collections was published in 1931. In 1934, the book “In Disputes about Method” was published (with the subtitle “Collection of articles on socialist realism”). In the 1920s, there were discussions about the artistic method of proletarian literature between theorists of Proletkult, RAPP, LEF, OPOYAZ. The theories of “living man” and “industrial” art, “learning from the classics,” and “social order” were permeated through and through with the pathos of struggle.
Expansion of the concept of socialist realism
Heated debates continued in the 1930s (about language, about formalism), in the 1940s-50s (mainly in connection with the “theory” of conflict-free behavior, the problem of the typical, “positive hero”). It is characteristic that discussions on certain issues of the “artistic platform” often touched upon politics and were associated with the problems of aestheticization of ideology, with the justification of authoritarianism and totalitarianism in culture. The debate lasted for decades about the relationship between romanticism and realism in socialist art. On the one hand, we were talking about romance as a “scientifically based dream of the future” (in this capacity, at a certain stage, romance began to be replaced by “historical optimism”), on the other hand, attempts were made to highlight a special method or stylistic movement of “socialist romanticism” with its cognitive possibilities. This trend (identified by Gorky and Lunacharsky) led to overcoming stylistic monotony and to a more comprehensive interpretation of the essence of socialist realism in the 1960s.
The desire to expand the concept of socialist realism (and at the same time to “shaken” the theory of the method) emerged in domestic literary criticism (under the influence of similar processes in foreign literature and criticism) at the All-Union Conference on Socialist Realism (1959): I.I. Anisimov emphasized the “great flexibility” and “breadth” inherent in the aesthetic concept of the method, which was dictated by the desire to overcome dogmatic postulates. In 1966, the Institute of Lithuania hosted the conference “Current Problems of Socialist Realism” (see the collection of the same name, 1969). The active apologetics of socialist realism by some speakers, the critical-realist “type of creativity” by others, the romantic by others, and the intellectual by others, testified to a clear desire to expand the boundaries of ideas about the literature of the socialist era.
Domestic theoretical thought was in search of a “broad formulation of the creative method” as a “historically open system” (D.F. Markov). The resulting discussion took place in the late 1980s. By this time, the authority of the statutory definition had finally been lost (it became associated with dogmatism, incompetent leadership in the field of art, the dictates of Stalinism in literature - “custom”, state, “barracks” realism). Based on real trends in the development of Russian literature, modern critics consider it quite legitimate to talk about socialist realism as a specific historical stage, an artistic movement in literature and art of the 1920s-50s. Socialist realism included V.V. Mayakovsky, Gorky, L. Leonov, Fadeev, M.A. Sholokhov, F.V. Gladkov, V.P. Kataev, M.S. Shaginyan, N.A. Ostrovsky, V. V. Vishnevsky, N.F. Pogodin and others.
A new situation arose in the literature of the second half of the 1950s in the wake of the 20th Party Congress, which noticeably undermined the foundations of totalitarianism and authoritarianism. Russian “village prose” was “broken out” of the socialist canons, depicting peasant life not in its “revolutionary development”, but, on the contrary, in conditions of social violence and deformation; literature also told the terrible truth about the war, destroying the myth of official heroism and optimism; The civil war and many episodes of Russian history appeared differently in literature. “Industrial prose” clung to the tenets of socialist realism for the longest time. 
An important role in the attack on Stalin’s legacy in the 1980s belonged to the so-called “detained” or “rehabilitated” literature - the unpublished works of A.P. Platonov, M.A. Bulgakov, A.A. Akhmatova, B.L. .Lasternak, V.S.Grossman, A.T.Tvardovsky, A.A.Bek, B.L.Mozhaev, V.I.Belov, M.F.Shatrova, Yu.V.Trifonov, V.F.Tendryakov, Yu O. Dombrovsky, V. T. Shalamov, A. I. Pristavkin and others. Domestic conceptualism (Sots Art) contributed to the exposure of socialist realism.
Although socialist realism “disappeared as an official doctrine with the collapse of the State, of which it was part of the ideological system,” the phenomenon remains at the center of research that considers it “as an integral element of Soviet civilization,” according to the Parisian journal Revue des études slaves. A popular train of thought in the West is an attempt to connect the origins of socialist realism with the avant-garde, as well as the desire to substantiate the coexistence of two trends in the history of Soviet literature: “totalitarian” and “revisionist”.
Socialist realism(socialist realism) is an artistic method of literature and art (leading in the art of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries), which is an aesthetic expression of a socialist-conscious concept of the world and man, determined by the era of struggle for the establishment and creation of a socialist society. The depiction of life ideals under socialism determines both the content and the basic artistic and structural principles of art. Its emergence and development are associated with the spread of socialist ideas in different countries, with the development of the revolutionary labor movement.
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✪ Lecture "Socialist realism"
✪ The offensive of ideology: the formation of socialist realism as a state artistic method
✪ Boris Gasparov. Socialist realism as a moral problem
✪ Lecture by B. M. Gasparov “Andrei Platonov and socialist realism”
✪ A. Bobrikov "Socialist realism and the studio of military artists named after M.B. Grekov"
Subtitles
History of origin and development
Term "socialist realism" first proposed by the Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the USSR SP I. Gronsky in the Literary Newspaper on May 23, 1932. It arose in connection with the need to direct RAPP and the avant-garde to the artistic development of Soviet culture. Decisive in this regard was the recognition of the role of classical traditions and the understanding of the new qualities of realism. In 1932-1933 Gronsky and head. The fiction sector of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, V. Kirpotin, vigorously promoted this term [ ] .
At the 1st All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934, Maxim Gorky stated:
“Socialist realism affirms being as an act, as creativity, the goal of which is the continuous development of man’s most valuable individual abilities for the sake of his victory over the forces of nature, for the sake of his health and longevity, for the sake of the great happiness of living on the earth, which he, in accordance with the continuous growth of his needs, wants treat the whole as a beautiful home for humanity united in one family.”
The state needed to approve this method as the main one for better control over creative individuals and better propaganda of its policies. In the previous period, the twenties, there were Soviet writers who sometimes took aggressive positions towards many outstanding writers. For example, RAPP, an organization of proletarian writers, was actively engaged in criticism of non-proletarian writers. RAPP consisted mainly of aspiring writers. During the period of the creation of modern industry (the years of industrialization), Soviet power needed art that would raise the people to “deeds of labor.” The fine arts of the 1920s also presented a rather motley picture. Several groups emerged within it. The most significant group was the Association of Artists of the Revolution. They depicted today: the life of the Red Army soldiers, workers, peasants, leaders of the revolution and labor. They considered themselves the heirs of the “Itinerants”. They went to factories, mills, and Red Army barracks to directly observe the lives of their characters, to “sketch” it. It was they who became the main backbone of the artists of “socialist realism”. It was much harder for less traditional masters, in particular, members of the OST (Society of Easel Painters), which united young people who graduated from the first Soviet art university [ ] .
Gorky returned from exile in a solemn ceremony and headed the specially created Union of Writers of the USSR, which included mainly writers and poets of Soviet orientation.
Characteristic
Definition from the point of view of official ideology
For the first time, the official definition of socialist realism was given in the Charter of the USSR SP, adopted at the First Congress of the SP:
Socialist realism, being the main method of Soviet fiction and literary criticism, requires the artist to provide a truthful, historically specific depiction of reality in its revolutionary development. Moreover, the truthfulness and historical specificity of the artistic depiction of reality must be combined with the task of ideological remodeling and education in the spirit of socialism.
This definition became the starting point for all further interpretations until the 80s.
« Socialist realism is a deeply vital, scientific and most advanced artistic method that developed as a result of the successes of socialist construction and the education of Soviet people in the spirit of communism. The principles of socialist realism ... were a further development of Lenin’s teaching on the partisanship of literature.” (Great Soviet Encyclopedia , )
Lenin expressed the idea that art should stand on the side of the proletariat in the following way:
“Art belongs to the people. The deepest springs of art can be found among the broad class of working people... Art must be based on their feelings, thoughts and demands and must grow with them.”
Principles of socialist realism
- Ideology. Show the peaceful life of the people, the search for ways to a new, better life, heroic deeds in order to achieve a happy life for all people.
- Specificity. In depicting reality, show the process of historical development, which in turn must correspond to the materialistic understanding of history (in the process of changing the conditions of their existence, people change their consciousness and attitude towards the surrounding reality).
As the definition from the Soviet textbook stated, the method implied the use of the heritage of world realistic art, but not as a simple imitation of great examples, but with a creative approach. “The method of socialist realism predetermines the deep connection of works of art with modern reality, the active participation of art in socialist construction. The tasks of the method of socialist realism require from each artist a true understanding of the meaning of the events taking place in the country, the ability to evaluate the phenomena of social life in their development, in complex dialectical interaction.”
The method included the unity of realism and Soviet romance, combining the heroic and romantic with “a realistic statement of the true truth of the surrounding reality.” It was argued that in this way the humanism of “critical realism” was complemented by “socialist humanism.”
The state gave orders, sent people on creative trips, organized exhibitions - thus stimulating the development of the necessary layer of art. The idea of “social order” is part of socialist realism.
In literature
The writer, in the famous expression of Yu. K. Olesha, is “an engineer of human souls.” With his talent he must influence the reader as a propagandist. He educates the reader in the spirit of devotion to the party and supports it in the struggle for the victory of communism. Subjective actions and aspirations of the individual had to correspond to the objective course of history. Lenin wrote: “Literature must become party literature... Down with non-party writers. Down with the superhuman writers! Literary work must become part of the general proletarian cause, the “cogs and wheels” of one single great social-democratic mechanism, set in motion by the entire conscious vanguard of the entire working class.”
A literary work in the genre of socialist realism should be built “on the idea of the inhumanity of any form of exploitation of man by man, expose the crimes of capitalism, inflaming the minds of readers and viewers with just anger, and inspire them to the revolutionary struggle for socialism.” [ ]
Maxim Gorky wrote the following about socialist realism:
“It is vitally and creatively necessary for our writers to take a point of view from the height of which - and only from its height - all the dirty crimes of capitalism, all the meanness of its bloody intentions are clearly visible, and all the greatness of the heroic work of the proletariat-dictator is visible.”
He also stated:
“...the writer must have a good knowledge of the history of the past and knowledge of the social phenomena of our time, in which he is called upon to simultaneously perform two roles: the role of a midwife and a gravedigger.”
Gorky believed that the main task of socialist realism is to cultivate a socialist, revolutionary view of the world, a corresponding sense of the world.
Belarusian Soviet writer Vasil Bykov called socialist realism the most advanced and proven method
So what can we, writers, masters of words, humanists, who have chosen the most advanced and proven method of socialist realism as the method of their creativity?
In the USSR, such foreign authors as Henri Barbusse, Louis Aragon, Martin Andersen-Nexe, Bertolt Brecht, Johannes Becher, Anna Seghers, Maria Puymanova, Pablo Neruda, Jorge Amado and others were also classified as socialist realists.
Criticism
Andrei Sinyavsky in his essay “What is socialist realism”, having analyzed the ideology and history of the development of socialist realism, as well as the features of its typical works in literature, concluded that this style is actually not related to “real” realism, but is Soviet a variant of classicism with admixtures of romanticism. Also in this work, he believed that due to the erroneous orientation of Soviet artists towards realistic works of the 19th century (especially critical realism), deeply alien to the classicistic nature of socialist realism - and, in his opinion, due to the unacceptable and curious synthesis of classicism and realism in one work - creating outstanding works of art in this style is unthinkable.
Details Category: Variety of styles and movements in art and their features Published 08/09/2015 19:34 Views: 5137“Socialist realism affirms being as an act, as creativity, the goal of which is the continuous development of man’s most valuable individual abilities for the sake of his victory over the forces of nature, for the sake of his health and longevity, for the sake of the great happiness of living on the earth, which he, in accordance with the continuous growth of his needs, wants treat everything as a beautiful home for humanity united in one family” (M. Gorky).
This description of the method was given by M. Gorky at the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934. And the term “socialist realism” itself was proposed by the journalist and literary critic I. Gronsky in 1932. But the idea of the new method belongs to A.V. Lunacharsky, revolutionary and Soviet statesman.
A completely justified question: why was a new method (and a new term) needed if realism already existed in art? And how did socialist realism differ from simple realism?
On the need for socialist realism
A new method was necessary in a country that was building a new socialist society.
P. Konchalovsky “From the Mow” (1948)
Firstly, it was necessary to control the creative process of creative individuals, i.e. Now the task of art was to propagate state policy - there were still enough artists who sometimes took an aggressive position in relation to what was happening in the country.
P. Kotov “Worker”
Secondly, these were the years of industrialization, and the Soviet government needed art that would raise the people to “deeds of labor.”
M. Gorky (Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov)
M. Gorky, who returned from emigration, headed the Union of Writers of the USSR, created in 1934, which included mainly writers and poets of Soviet orientation.
The method of socialist realism required the artist to provide a truthful, historically specific depiction of reality in its revolutionary development. Moreover, the truthfulness and historical specificity of the artistic depiction of reality must be combined with the task of ideological remodeling and education in the spirit of socialism. This setting for cultural figures in the USSR was in effect until the 1980s.
Principles of socialist realism
The new method did not deny the heritage of world realistic art, but predetermined the deep connection of works of art with modern reality, the active participation of art in socialist construction. Each artist had to understand the meaning of the events taking place in the country and be able to evaluate the phenomena of social life in their development.
A. Plastov “Haymaking” (1945)
The method did not exclude Soviet romance, the need to combine the heroic and romantic.
The state gave orders to creative people, sent them on creative trips, organized exhibitions, stimulating the development of new art.
The main principles of socialist realism were nationality, ideology and concreteness.
Socialist realism in literature
M. Gorky believed that the main task of socialist realism is to cultivate a socialist, revolutionary view of the world, a corresponding sense of the world.
Konstantin Simonov
The most significant writers representing the method of socialist realism: Maxim Gorky, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Alexander Tvardovsky, Veniamin Kaverin, Anna Zegers, Vilis Latsis, Nikolai Ostrovsky, Alexander Serafimovich, Fyodor Gladkov, Konstantin Simonov, Caesar Solodar, Mikhail Sholokhov, Nikolai Nosov, Alexander Fadeev , Konstantin Fedin, Dmitry Furmanov, Yuriko Miyamoto, Marietta Shaginyan, Yulia Drunina, Vsevolod Kochetov and others.
N. Nosov (Soviet children's writer, best known as the author of works about Dunno)
As we can see, the list also contains the names of writers from other countries.
Anna Zegers(1900-1983) - German writer, member of the German Communist Party.
Yuriko Miyamoto(1899-1951) - Japanese writer, representative of proletarian literature, member of the Japanese Communist Party. These writers supported socialist ideology.
Alexander Alexandrovich Fadeev (1901-1956)
Russian Soviet writer and public figure. Winner of the Stalin Prize, first degree (1946).
From childhood he showed a talent for writing and was distinguished by his ability to fantasize. I was fond of adventure literature.
While still studying at the Vladivostok Commercial School, he carried out orders from the underground Bolshevik committee. He wrote his first story in 1922. While working on the novel “Destruction,” he decided to become a professional writer. “Destruction” brought fame and recognition to the young writer.
Still from the film “The Young Guard” (1947)
His most famous novel is “Young Guard” (about the Krasnodon underground organization “Young Guard”, which operated in territory occupied by Nazi Germany, many of whose members were killed by the Nazis. In mid-February 1943, after the liberation of Donetsk Krasnodon by Soviet troops, from the pit located Not far from the city of mine No. 5, several dozen corpses of teenagers tortured by the Nazis, who were members of the underground organization “Young Guard” during the occupation, were recovered.
The book was published in 1946. The writer was sharply criticized for the fact that the “leading and directing” role of the Communist Party was not clearly expressed in the novel; he received critical remarks in the Pravda newspaper actually from Stalin himself. In 1951, he created the second edition of the novel, and in it he paid more attention to the leadership of the underground organization by the CPSU (b).
Standing at the head of the Writers' Union of the USSR, A. Fadeev implemented the decisions of the party and government in relation to the writers M.M. Zoshchenko, A.A. Akhmatova, A.P. Platonov. In 1946, Zhdanov’s well-known decree was issued, which effectively destroyed Zoshchenko and Akhmatova as writers. Fadeev was among those who carried out this sentence. But the human feelings in him were not completely killed, he tried to help the financially distressed M. Zoshchenko, and also bothered about the fate of other writers who were in opposition to the authorities (B. Pasternak, N. Zabolotsky, L. Gumilyov, A. Platonov). Having such a hard time experiencing this split, he fell into depression.
On May 13, 1956, Alexander Fadeev shot himself with a revolver at his dacha in Peredelkino. “...My life, as a writer, loses all meaning, and with great joy, as a deliverance from this vile existence, where meanness, lies and slander fall upon you, I am leaving this life. The last hope was to at least tell this to the people who rule the state, but for the past 3 years, despite my requests, they cannot even accept me. I ask you to bury me next to my mother” (Suicide letter from A. A. Fadeev to the CPSU Central Committee. May 13, 1956).
Socialist realism in fine art
In the fine arts of the 1920s, several groups emerged. The most significant group was the Association of Artists of the Revolution.
"Association of Artists of the Revolution" (AHR)
S. Malyutin “Portrait of Furmanov” (1922). State Tretyakov Gallery
This large association of Soviet artists, graphic artists and sculptors was the most numerous, it was supported by the state. The association lasted 10 years (1922-1932) and was the forerunner of the Union of Artists of the USSR. The association was headed by Pavel Radimov, the last head of the Association of Itinerants. From that moment on, the Itinerants as an organization virtually ceased to exist. The AHR members rejected the avant-garde, although the 20s were the heyday of the Russian avant-garde, which also wanted to work for the benefit of the revolution. But the paintings of these artists were not understood and accepted by society. Here, for example, is the work of K. Malevich “The Reaper”.
K. Malevich “The Reaper” (1930)
This is what the AKhR artists declared: “Our civic duty to humanity is the artistic and documentary recording of the greatest moment in history in its revolutionary impulse. We will depict today: the life of the Red Army, the life of workers, peasants, leaders of the revolution and heroes of labor... We will give a real picture of events, and not abstract fabrications that discredit our revolution in the face of the international proletariat.”
The main task of the Association members was to create genre paintings on subjects from modern life, in which they developed the traditions of painting by the Wanderers and “brought art closer to life.”
I. Brodsky “V. I. Lenin in Smolny in 1917" (1930)
The main activity of the Association in the 1920s was exhibitions, of which about 70 were organized in the capital and other cities. These exhibitions were very popular. Depicting the present day (the life of the Red Army soldiers, workers, peasants, revolutionaries and labor), the artists of the Academy of Arts considered themselves heirs of the Wanderers. They visited factories, mills, and Red Army barracks to observe the lives of their characters. It was they who became the main backbone of the artists of socialist realism.
V. Favorsky
Representatives of socialist realism in painting and graphics were E. Antipova, I. Brodsky, P. Buchkin, P. Vasiliev, B. Vladimirsky, A. Gerasimov, S. Gerasimov, A. Deineka, P. Konchalovsky, D. Mayevsky, S. Osipov, A. Samokhvalov, V. Favorsky and others.
Socialist realism in sculpture
In the sculpture of socialist realism, the names of V. Mukhina, N. Tomsky, E. Vuchetich, S. Konenkov and others are known.
Vera Ignatievna Mukhina (1889 -1953)
M. Nesterov “Portrait of V. Mukhina” (1940)
Soviet sculptor-monumentalist, academician of the USSR Academy of Arts, People's Artist of the USSR. Winner of five Stalin Prizes.
Her monument “Worker and Collective Farm Woman” was erected in Paris at the 1937 World Exhibition. Since 1947, this sculpture has been the emblem of the Mosfilm film studio. The monument is made of stainless chromium-nickel steel. Height is about 25 m (height of the pavilion-pedestal is 33 m). Total weight 185 tons.
V. Mukhina “Worker and Collective Farm Woman”
V. Mukhina is the author of many monuments, sculptural works and decorative and applied items.
V. Mukhin “Monument “P.I. Tchaikovsky" near the building of the Moscow Conservatory
V. Mukhina “Monument to Maxim Gorky” (Nizhny Novgorod)
N.V. was also an outstanding Soviet monumental sculptor. Tomsky.
N. Tomsky “Monument to P. S. Nakhimov” (Sevastopol)
Thus, socialist realism made its worthy contribution to art.
3. Painting of the Soviet era. Socialist realism
Until the 30s. Some differences still remained between directions and aesthetic systems. After 1932 in the USSR, the division of art into “official” and “unofficial” was finally consolidated after the dispersal of all artistic groups and the beginning of the formation of a single Union of Artists, placed under strict ideological control. All directions that did not meet the canons of socialist realism ended up “underground”: both avant-garde and more traditional, but unacceptable in “ideological and thematic” terms.
“Quiet art”, trends in art of the 20th century, subject to strict censorship and ideological pressure, when fine art, while remaining “legal”, participating in exhibitions, deliberately narrowed the range of motifs, preferring lyrical landscapes, scenes of family life, non-commissioned ones to pompous official themes portraits of friends and relatives. It usually differs from “unofficial art” proper in its stylistic “moderation” and relative traditionalism. These trends are characteristic of many artists of the Soviet period, such as L.A. Bruni, L.F. Zhegin, N.P. Krymov, M.K. Sokolov, N.A. Tyrsa, V.A. Favorsky, R.R. Falk, A.V. Fonvizin and others.
Bruni Lev Alexandrovich (1894-1948), Russian artist, in the 1910s and early 1920s. joined futurism and constructivism, creating counter-reliefs and non-objective compositions. A virtuoso of drawing, a light spot of color, later moved on to more traditional painting and graphics (including landscapes of Optina Pustyn) in the spirit of “quiet art”. He was also a master of monumental painting (in 1935-48 he headed the corresponding studio at the Academy of Architecture), developing here the principles of free, rhythmically refined creativity, alien to the officialdom.
Zhegin (real name Shekhtel) Lev Fedorovich (1892-1969), Russian artist and art theorist. Son F.O. Shekhtel. Active member of the Makovets society. In his paintings and graphics, he preferred simple landscape and genre motifs in the spirit of “quiet art,” imbuing them with a philosophically contemplative mood.
Krymov Nikolai Petrovich (1884-1958), Russian painter, People's Artist of Russia (1956), corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Arts (1949). Master of synthetic, harmoniously constructed landscape paintings (“Morning”, 1916; “River”, 1926).
Sokolov Mikhail Ksenofontovich (1885-1947), Russian artist, a remarkable master of Russian “quiet art” of the 1920-30s, a kind of “late romantic”. He created artistically expressive paintings and graphics, full of historical reminiscences, subtle, contemplative poetry (manifested, in particular, in the cycle of miniature landscapes written in 1939-43 at the Taiga station in Siberia, where Sokolov was in a concentration camp).
Falk Robert Rafailovich (1886-1958), Russian painter. Member of the “Jack of Diamonds”. Still lifes, landscapes (“Bay in Balaklava”, 1927), portraits are marked by color saturation and figurative expressiveness.
The Lianozovo group, a group of Russian artists and poets, originally met in a barracks house at the Lianozovo station, where in the 1950s. lived O.Ya. Rabin. Her spiritual center was the family of E.L. Kropivnitsky himself, as well as his wife, son and daughter, are also artists (O.A. Potapova, L.E. Kropivnitsky, V.E. Kropivnitskaya). The group, which became one of the most significant centers of Russian “unofficial art” of the “Thaw” period, also included artists V.N. Nemukhin, L.A. Masterkova, N.E. Vechtomov, poets V. Nekrasov, G.V. Sapgir, I. Kholin. Their work, different in style, combined the lyrical frankness of “black humor”, sharp social satire with the trends of the reviving avant-garde.
Rabin Oskar Yakovlevich (b. 1928), Russian artist. Member of the Lianozov group, one of the leaders of Russian “unofficial art”. In 1978 he emigrated from the USSR, settling in Paris. He is most characterized by urban and rural motifs that are minor in mood and color, painted in dull colors, as well as still lifes that combine the features of “black” grotesque with soulful lyricism. These works became a kind of connecting link between “quiet art” and social art.
Kropivnitsky Evgeny Leonidovich (1893-1979), Russian artist and poet. Patriarch of “unofficial art”, spiritual leader of the Lianozov group. His work of the mid-20th century, both poetic and pictorial-graphic, is characterized by simple motifs, soulful lyrical expressionism interspersed with sad grotesque.
Since the ban on groups, socialist realism was declared a mandatory method of reflecting reality, although in all its descriptions it was impossible to detect signs of the structure of artistic language. Socialist realism, a term used in Soviet literary and art criticism since the 30s. to designate the “basic method” of literature, art and criticism, which “requires from the artist a truthful, historically specific depiction of reality in its revolutionary development,” combined “with the task of educating the working people in the spirit of socialism.” The aesthetic concept of “realism” was combined with the definition of “socialist,” which in practice led to the subordination of literature and art to the principles of ideology and politics. The main postulate of socialist realism was partisanship and socialist ideology. Attempts to expand the “theoretical base” of socialist realism with the ideas of “nationality” (in the late 30s), “socialist humanism” (from the 50s) did not change the official status and ideological nature of the concept.
All artists were required to belong to the Union of Artists. Some artists refused to join the Union. Their work was left out of exhibition, museum and any other official life. Some were members of the Union only formally, earning their living by copying or design work. Some of them have received international recognition.
A striking example is Rodchenko, in 1925 he participated in the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts and the Art Industry in Paris in four sections and received a silver medal for each of them. But already in the 1930s, after socialist realism was decreed as the only style and method, Rodchenko’s work was increasingly subject to defamation. The persecution ended with the master's expulsion from the Union of Soviet Artists in 1951, reinstated in 1954. In the mid-1930s. returned to painting, writing a series of paintings on the theme of the circus and circus performers, from the second half of the 1930s. and throughout the 1940s. created decorative and non-objective works. Since 1934, together with Stepanova, he designed representative albums and photo albums released on the occasion of anniversaries and special events (“10 years of Uzbekistan”, 1934; “First Cavalry”, 1935-37; “Red Army”, 1938; “Soviet Aviation”, 1939, and etc.).
There is an opinion that: “The highest achievement of Russian art of the twentieth century is not the revolutionary avant-garde, as was believed for many years, but the art of socialist realism.” This is the opinion of the British scientist Matthew Cullern Bone, who is a generally recognized authority in the field of Russian and Soviet art.
Here are a few quotes from articles by foreign art critics devoted to this period. “The art of the era of socialist realism can be divided into two components: the art of official iconography, glorifying the regime and its leaders, and parallel art, which is higher in quality, more poetic, freer and closer to the everyday life of an ordinary person. It is harmonious and free from schemes, especially in landscape painting". "Europeo" (Spain) - "Faces of the Slavic soul."
"In a political state that demands uniformity, the similarity of the paintings would seem unsurprising. But you will nevertheless be surprised by the diversity contained within this similarity, by the skill of artists who, despite the restrictions dictated by the state, in their works by the energy they generate and degrees of expressiveness go far beyond the limits of the subject matter prescribed to them."
The USSR Academy of Arts was founded in 1947, when the power of the Stalinist empire reached its zenith. Stalin personally appointed the first 28 members of the Academy, choosing them from more than one and a half thousand Soviet artists of that time. Membership in the Academy was the last and most honorable stage of an artist's professional career and provided many financial and social privileges. Soviet academicians formed the artistic elite throughout the Soviet period. They created glory for Soviet art. Their paintings are included in the gold fund of many Russian state museums, including the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg. However, the paintings of the famous masters of the era, Stalinist academicians such as Dmitry Nalbandyan, remained in oblivion for some time.
Dmitry Nalbandyan, a famous artist in the 30s. In 1933, the artist received an invitation to go to Leningrad to work on the painting “Speech by S. M. Kirov at the XVII Party Congress.” In the autumn of 1935, the painting was exhibited at an exhibition of Moscow painters at the State Museum of Fine Arts and caused a wide public response: it was reproduced in the newspapers Pravda and Izvestia, and distributed in reproductions. The first serious success inspired the artist. However, the tragic death of Kirov somewhat halted the forward progress of his career. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, Nalbandian worked a lot, mainly in the genres of portraits, landscapes and still lifes, and created many beautiful lyrical works. In 1944, Dmitry Nalbandyan began working on his famous “Portrait of I.V. Stalin,” which became his springboard to dizzying fame.
Nowadays, interest in the works of that time is being revived. Experts are confident that "Art from the era of Lenin and Stalin is becoming a new area of investment. One of the most popular names that has become popular is Nalbandian. Once this art becomes well known in the West, prices for works will double or triple within a few years."
The work of many famous artists of the Soviet era is characterized by both outstanding stylistic skill - the product of one of the best academic schools in Europe, and the fact that in many respects they continue the tradition of the great impressionists of the 19th century.
The newest trends in Russian art of the 1910s brought Russia to the forefront of the international artistic culture of that time. Having passed into history, the phenomenon of the great experiment was named - the Russian avant-garde. This concept implies earlier Cézanne, Fauvist tendencies, and the emergence of abstract art in the “Rauchism” of M. Larionov, and advanced systems of non-objective creativity: cubo-futurism, Suprematism of K. Malevich and his school, constructivism led by A. Rodchenko and V. Tatlin , Russian-German expressionism by V. Kandinsky.
The second decade of our century put Malevich and Kandinsky on a par with Picasso, Braque or Klee. 1917 changed everything. This did not become obvious immediately. The first 5 years - the heroic five years of 1917-1922 - still left room for hope. But soon the illusions dissipated. The drama of destruction of the grandiose bastion of modernist art, created in Russia by genius and labor, manifestos and heated discussions of world-famous masters, began.
By the turn of the 1920s and 1930s, non-realistic movements were completely prohibited; some artists left for other countries; others were repressed or, succumbing to cruel inevitability, abandoned avant-garde quests. In 1932, numerous artistic associations were finally closed; The authorities created a single union of artists. Until then, some differences remained between directions and aesthetic systems. Since the ban on groups, socialist realism has been declared a mandatory method of reflecting reality.
Now, at a distance of decades, we perceive the iconic paintings of socialist realism through the prism of modernity. On the other hand, having long ago opened the curtain on the deliberately hidden sides of artistic history, we learned how parallel to the official one, unknown to almost any of our contemporaries, there was a “second culture” - a modest prototype of the underground of the 1960-1980s, which did not dare to openly resist the despotic regime, but preserving for new generations the unbroken creative freedom of the Artist.
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Unknown Russian avant-garde in museums and private collections / Comp. HELL. Sarabyanov - M., 1992.
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And the softness of the stroke. His brushes include portraits of N.E. and A.P. Struisky (1772, Tretyakov Gallery), “Unknown in a cocked hat” (early 1770s, Tretyakov Gallery), “Unknown in a pink dress” (1770s, Tretyakov Gallery). In the second half of the 18th century, artists began to pay attention to depicting the life and everyday life of peasants. The serf artist of Count Potemkin, Mikhail Shibanov, dedicated his works to the peasant theme. Among other artists...
Education. The path from classicism through romanticism to critical realism determined the place of certain types of plastic arts in the artistic life of Russia and the internal periodization of the history of Russian art during this period. Throughout the first half of the 19th century. can be divided into two stages: 1800–1830; 1830–1850 Of course, this division is somewhat arbitrary, but in general the difference between these two...
Socialist realism: the individual is socially active and included in the creation of history through violent means.
The philosophical foundation of socialist realism was Marxism, which asserts: 1) the proletariat is a messiah class, historically called upon to make a revolution and by force, through the dictatorship of the proletariat, transform society from an unjust to a just one; 2) at the head of the proletariat is a party of a new type, consisting of professionals called upon after the revolution to lead the construction of a new classless society in which people are deprived of private property (as it turned out, thereby people become absolutely dependent on the state, and the state itself becomes de facto property of the party bureaucracy that heads it).
These socio-utopian (and, as historically revealed, inevitably leading to totalitarianism), philosophical and political postulates found their continuation in Marxist aesthetics, which directly underlies socialist realism. The main ideas of Marxism in aesthetics are as follows.
- 1. Art, having some relative independence from the economy, is determined by the economy and artistic and mental traditions.
- 2. Art has the power to influence and mobilize the masses.
- 3. Party leadership of art directs it in the right direction.
- 4. Art must be imbued with historical optimism and serve the cause of society's movement towards communism. It must affirm the system established by the revolution. However, at the level of the house manager and even the chairman of the collective farm, criticism is acceptable; in exceptional circumstances 1941-1942 with Stalin’s personal permission, criticism of even the front commander was allowed in A. Korneychuk’s play “Front”. 5. Marxist epistemology, which places practice at the forefront, has become the basis for the interpretation of the figurative nature of art. 6. Lenin’s principle of party membership continued the ideas of Marx and Engels about classism and tendentiousness of art and introduced the idea of serving the party into the artist’s very creative consciousness.
On this philosophical and aesthetic basis, socialist realism arose - an art biased by the party bureaucracy that served the needs of a totalitarian society in the formation of a “new man.” According to official aesthetics, this art reflected the interests of the proletariat, and later of the entire socialist society. Socialist realism is an artistic movement that affirms the artistic concept: the individual is socially active and included in the creation of history through violent means.
Western theorists and critics give their definitions of socialist realism. According to the English critic J. A. Gooddon, “Socialist realism is an artistic credo developed in Russia to introduce Marxist doctrine and spread to other communist countries. This art affirms the goals of a socialist society and views the artist as a servant of the state or, in accordance with Stalin's definition, as an "engineer of human souls." Gooddon noted that socialist realism encroached on the freedom of creativity, which Pasternak and Solzhenitsyn rebelled against, and “they were shamelessly used for propaganda purposes by the Western press.”
Critics Karl Benson and Arthur Gatz write: “Socialist realism is traditional for the 19th century. a method of prose storytelling and dramaturgy associated with themes that favorably interpret the socialist idea. In the Soviet Union, especially during the Stalin era, as well as in other communist countries, it was artificially imposed on artists by the literary establishment."
Within the biased, official art, semi-official, politically neutral, but deeply humanistic (B. Okudzhava, V. Vysotsky, A. Galich) and frontier (A. Voznesensky) art, tolerated by the authorities, developed as a heresy. The latter is mentioned in the epigram:
The poet with his poetry
Creates worldwide intrigue.
It is with the permission of the authorities
Shows nothing to the authorities.
socialist realism totalitarian proletariat marxist
During periods of softening of the totalitarian regime (for example, during the “thaw”), works that were uncompromisingly truthful (“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” by Solzhenitsyn) also appeared on the pages of the press. However, even in tougher times, there was a “back door” next to ceremonial art: poets used Aesopian language, went into children’s literature, into literary translation. Rejected artists (underground) formed groups, associations (for example, “SMOG”, Lianozovsky school of painting and poetry), unofficial exhibitions were created (for example, “bulldozer” in Izmailovo) - all this made it easier to endure the social boycott of publishing houses, exhibition committees, bureaucratic authorities and “cultural police stations.”
The theory of socialist realism was filled with dogmas and vulgar sociological propositions and, in this form, was used as a means of bureaucratic pressure on art. This manifested itself in authoritarianism and subjectivism of judgments and assessments, interference in creative activity, violation of creative freedom, and rigid command methods of art management. Such leadership cost the multinational Soviet culture dearly, affecting the spiritual and moral state of society, and the human and creative fate of many artists.
Many artists, including the greatest, became victims of tyranny during the years of Stalinism: E. Charents, T. Tabidze, B. Pilnyak, I. Babel, M. Koltsov, O. Mandelstam, P. Markish, V. Meyerhold, S. Mikhoels . Y. Olesha, M. Bulgakov, A. Platonov, V. Grossman, B. Pasternak were pushed aside from the artistic process and remained silent for years or worked at a quarter of their strength, unable to show the results of their creativity. R. Falk, A. Tairov, A. Koonen.
The incompetence of art management was also reflected in the awarding of high prizes for opportunistic and weak works, which, despite the propaganda hype around them, not only did not enter the golden fund of artistic culture, but were generally quickly forgotten (S. Babaevsky, M. Bubennov, A. Surov, A. Sofronov).
Incompetence and authoritarianism, rudeness were not only personal characteristics of the party leaders, but (absolute power corrupts leaders absolutely!) became the style of the party leadership of artistic culture. The very principle of party leadership of art is a false and countercultural idea.
Post-perestroika criticism saw a number of important features of socialist realism. "Socialist realism. He is not at all so odious, he has quite enough analogues. If you look at it without social pain and through the prism of cinema, it turns out that the famous American film of the thirties “Gone with the Wind” is equivalent in its artistic merit to the Soviet film of the same years “Circus”. And if we return to literature, then Feuchtwanger’s novels in their aesthetics are not at all polar with A. Tolstoy’s epic “Peter the Great.” It was not for nothing that Feuchtwanger loved Stalin so much. Socialist realism is still the same “great style,” but only in the Soviet way.” (Yarkevich. 1999) Socialist realism is not only an artistic direction (a stable concept of the world and personality) and a type of “grand style,” but also a method.
The method of socialist realism as a way of imaginative thinking, a way of creating a politically tendentious work that fulfills a certain social order, was used far beyond the sphere of dominance of communist ideology, and was used for purposes alien to the conceptual orientation of socialist realism as an artistic movement. Thus, in 1972, at the Metropolitan Opera, I saw a musical performance that struck me with its tendentiousness. A young student came on vacation to Puerto Rico, where he met a beautiful girl. They dance and sing merrily at the carnival. Then they decide to get married and fulfill their desire, due to which the dancing becomes especially temperamental. The only thing that upsets the young people is that he is just a student, and she is a poor peasant girl. However, this does not stop them from singing and dancing. In the midst of the wedding revelry, a blessing and a check for a million dollars arrives from New York from the parents of a student for the newlyweds. Here the fun becomes uncontrollable, all the dancers are arranged in a pyramid - below are the Puerto Rican people, above are the distant relatives of the bride, even above are her parents, and at the very top are the rich American student groom and the poor Puerto Rican bride-girl. Above them is a striped US flag with many stars burning on it. Everyone sings, and the bride and groom kiss, and at the moment their lips join, a new star lights up on the American flag, which means the emergence of a new American state - Pueru Rico is part of the United States. Among the most vulgar plays of Soviet drama, it is difficult to find a work that, in its vulgarity and straightforward political bias, reaches the level of this American performance. Why not the method of socialist realism?
According to the proclaimed theoretical postulates, socialist realism involves the inclusion of romance in imaginative thinking - a figurative form of historical anticipation, a dream based on real trends in the development of reality and overtaking the natural course of events.
Socialist realism affirms the need for historicism in art: historically specific artistic reality must acquire “three-dimensionality” in it (the writer strives to capture, in Gorky’s words, “three realities” - past, present and future). Here socialist realism is invaded by
stools of the utopian ideology of communism, which firmly knows the path to the “bright future of humanity.” However, for poetry, this aspiration to the future (even if it is utopian) had a lot of attractiveness, and the poet Leonid Martynov wrote:
Don't honor
Yourself worthwhile
Only here, in reality,
Present,
And imagine yourself walking,
Along the border between the past and the future
Mayakovsky also introduces the future into the reality of the 20s he depicts in the plays “The Bedbug” and “Bathhouse”. This image of the future appears in Mayakovsky’s dramaturgy both in the form of the Phosphoric Woman and in the form of a time machine, carrying people worthy of communism into a distant and beautiful tomorrow, and spitting out bureaucrats and other “unworthy of communism.” I note that society will “spit out” many “unworthy” people into the Gulag throughout its history, and some twenty-five years will pass after Mayakovsky wrote these plays and the concept of “unworthy of communism” will be widespread (“by the philosopher” D. Chesnokov, with approval of Stalin) on entire peoples (already evicted from places of historical residence or subject to deportation). This is how the artistic ideas turn out even of the really “best and most talented poet of the Soviet era” (I. Stalin), who created works of art that were vividly embodied on stage by both V. Meyerhold and V. Pluchek. However, nothing surprising: reliance on utopian ideas, including the principle of historical improvement of the world through violence, could not help but result in some “liking” to the Gulag’s “urgent tasks.”
Domestic art in the twentieth century. went through a number of stages, some of which enriched world culture with masterpieces, while others had a decisive (not always beneficial) impact on the artistic process in the countries of Eastern Europe and Asia (China, Vietnam, North Korea).
The first stage (1900-1917) - Silver Age. Symbolism, Acmeism, and Futurism originated and developed. In the novel “Mother” by Gorky, the principles of socialist realism are formed. Socialist realism arose at the beginning of the twentieth century. in Russia. Its founder was Maxim Gorky, whose artistic endeavors were continued and developed by Soviet art.
The second stage (1917-1932) is characterized by aesthetic polyphony and pluralism of artistic movements.
The Soviet government introduces brutal censorship, Trotsky believes that it is directed against the “union of capital with prejudice.” Gorky is trying to resist this violence against culture, for which Trotsky disrespectfully calls him “the most amiable psalm-reader.” Trotsky laid the foundation for the Soviet tradition of evaluating artistic phenomena not from an aesthetic, but from a purely political point of view. He gives political rather than aesthetic characteristics of the phenomena of art: “cadetism”, “joined”, “fellow travelers”. In this regard, Stalin will become a true Trotskyist and social utilitarianism and political pragmatics will become the dominant principles for him in his approach to art.
During these years, the formation of socialist realism took place and its discovery of an active personality participating in the creation of history through violence, according to the utopian model of the classics of Marxism. In art, the problem of a new artistic concept of personality and the world arose.
There was intense controversy around this concept in the 1920s. As the highest human virtues, the art of socialist realism glorifies socially important and significant qualities - heroism, selflessness, self-sacrifice (“The Death of a Commissar” by Petrov-Vodkin), self-giving (“give your heart to the times to break” - Mayakovsky).
The inclusion of the individual in the life of society becomes an important task of art and this is a valuable feature of socialist realism. However, the individual's own interests are not taken into account. Art asserts that a person’s personal happiness lies in dedication and service to the “happy future of humanity,” and the source of historical optimism and the filling of an individual’s life with social meaning lies in his involvement in the creation of a new “fair society.” Serafimovich’s novels “Iron Stream” are imbued with this pathos , “Chapaev” by Furmanov, the poem “Good” by Mayakovsky. In Sergei Eisenstein’s films “Strike” and “Battleship Potemkin,” the fate of the individual is overshadowed by the fate of the masses. The subject becomes what in humanistic art, concerned with the fate of the individual, was only a secondary element, “social background”, “social landscape”, “mass scene”, “epic retreat”.
However, some artists moved away from the dogmas of socialist realism. Thus, S. Eisenstein still did not completely eliminate the individual hero, did not sacrifice him to history. The mother evokes the strongest compassion in the episode on the Odessa stairs (“Battleship Potemkin”). At the same time, the director remains in line with socialist realism and does not limit the viewer’s sympathy to the personal fate of the character, but focuses the audience on experiencing the drama of history itself and asserts the historical necessity and legitimacy of the revolutionary action of the Black Sea sailors.
An invariant of the artistic concept of socialist realism at the first stage of its development: man in the “iron stream” of history “flows like a drop with the masses.” In other words, the meaning of an individual’s life is seen in selflessness (a person’s heroic ability to be involved in the creation of a new reality is affirmed, even at the cost of his direct everyday interests, and sometimes at the cost of life itself), in involvement in the creation of history (“and there are no other worries!”). Pragmatic and political tasks are placed above moral postulates and humanistic orientations. So, E. Bagritsky calls:
And if the era orders: kill! - Kill.
And if the era orders: lie! - Lie.
At this stage, next to socialist realism, other artistic movements are developing, asserting their invariants of the artistic concept of the world and personality (constructivism - I. Selvinsky, K. Zelinsky, I. Ehrenburg; neo-romanticism - A. Green; acmeism - N. Gumilyov , A. Akhmatova, imagism - S. Yesenin, Mariengof, symbolism - A. Blok; literary schools and associations arise and develop - LEF, Napostovites, “Pereval”, RAPP).
The very concept of “socialist realism,” which expressed the artistic and conceptual qualities of the new art, arose in the course of heated discussions and theoretical searches. These searches were a collective endeavor, in which many cultural figures took part in the late 20s and early 30s, who defined the new method of literature in different ways: “proletarian realism” (F. Gladkov, Yu. Lebedinsky), “tendentious realism" (V. Mayakovsky), "monumental realism" (A. Tolstoy), "realism with socialist content" (V. Stavsky). In the 30s, cultural figures increasingly agreed on defining the creative method of Soviet art as the method of socialist realism. “Literary Gazette” on May 29, 1932 in the editorial “For work!” wrote: “The masses demand from artists sincerity, revolutionary socialist realism in depicting the proletarian revolution.” The head of the Ukrainian writers' organization I. Kulik (Kharkov, 1932) said: “...conditionally, the method that you and I could focus on should be called “revolutionary socialist realism.” At a meeting of writers at Gorky’s apartment on October 25, 1932, socialist realism was named as the artistic method of literature during the discussion. Later, the collective efforts to develop a concept of the artistic method of Soviet literature were “forgotten” and everything was attributed to Stalin.
The third stage (1932--1956). When the Writers' Union was formed in the first half of the 30s, socialist realism was defined as an artistic method that requires the writer to provide a truthful and historically specific depiction of reality in its revolutionary development; The task of educating workers in the spirit of communism was emphasized. There was nothing specifically aesthetic in this definition, nothing pertaining to art itself. The definition oriented art towards political engagement and was equally applicable to history as a science, to journalism, and to propaganda and agitation. At the same time, this definition of socialist realism was difficult to apply to such types of art as architecture, applied and decorative arts, music, to such genres as landscape, still life. Essentially, lyricism and satire turned out to be outside the specified understanding of the artistic method. It banished or questioned major artistic values from our culture.
In the first half of the 30s. aesthetic pluralism is administratively suppressed, the idea of an active personality is deepened, but this personality does not always have an orientation towards truly humanistic values. The leader, the party and its goals become the highest values in life.
In 1941, war invades the life of the Soviet people. Literature and art are included in the spiritual support of the fight against the fascist occupiers and victory. During this period, the art of socialist realism, where it does not fall into the primitiveness of agitation, most fully corresponds to the vital interests of the people.
In 1946, when our country lived with the joy of victory and the pain of enormous losses, a resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was adopted “On the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad.” A. Zhdanov spoke at a meeting of party activists and writers of Leningrad to explain the resolution.
The creativity and personality of M. Zoshchenko were characterized by Zhdanov in the following “literary-critical” expressions: “philistine and vulgar”, “non-Soviet writer”, “dirtyness and lewdness”, “turns his vulgar and low soul inside out”, “unprincipled and unscrupulous literary hooligan".
It was said about A. Akhmatova that the range of her poetry is “limited to the point of squalor”, her work “cannot be tolerated on the pages of our magazines”, that, “besides the harm”, the work of this is either a “nun” or a “harlot” can give nothing to our youth.
Zhdanov’s extreme literary-critical vocabulary is the only argument and tool of “analysis.” The rude tone of literary teachings, elaborations, persecution, prohibitions, and martinet interference in the work of artists were justified by the dictates of historical circumstances, the extremity of the situations being experienced, and the constant aggravation of the class struggle.
Socialist realism was bureaucratically used as a separator, separating “permissible” (“our”) art from “illegal” (“not ours”) art. Because of this, the diversity of domestic art was rejected, neo-romanticism (A. Green’s story “Scarlet Sails”, A. Rylov’s painting “In the Blue Expanse”), new realist existential-event, humanistic art were pushed to the periphery of artistic life or even beyond the boundaries of the artistic process ( M. Bulgakov “The White Guard”, B. Pasternak “Doctor Zhivago”, A. Platonov “The Pit”, sculpture by S. Konenkov, painting by P. Korin), realism of memory (painting by R. Falk and graphics by V. Favorsky), poetry of state the spirit of the individual (M. Tsvetaeva, O. Mandelstam, A. Akhmatova, later I. Brodsky). History has put everything in its place and today it is clear that it is these works, rejected by official culture, that constitute the essence of the artistic process of the era and are its main artistic achievements and aesthetic values.
The artistic method as a historically conditioned type of figurative thinking is determined by three factors: 1) reality, 2) the worldview of artists, 3) the artistic and mental material from which they proceed. The imaginative thinking of the artists of socialist realism was based on the vital basis of the reality of the twentieth century, which accelerated in its development, on the ideological basis of the principles of historicism and the dialectical understanding of existence, relying on the realistic traditions of Russian and world art. Therefore, with all its tendentiousness, socialist realism, in accordance with the realistic tradition, aimed the artist at creating a three-dimensional, aesthetically multi-colored character. Such, for example, is the character of Grigory Melekhov in the novel “Quiet Don” by M. Sholokhov.
The fourth stage (1956-1984) - the art of socialist realism, affirming a historically active personality, began to think about its intrinsic value. If the artists did not directly attack the power of the party or the principles of socialist realism, the bureaucracy tolerated them; if they served, they were rewarded. “And if not, then no”: the persecution of B. Pasternak, the “bulldozer” dispersal of the exhibition in Izmailovo, the study of artists “at the highest level” (by Khrushchev) in Manezh, the arrest of I. Brodsky, the expulsion of A. Solzhenitsyn... -- “stages of the long path” of the party leadership of art.
During this period, the statutory definition of socialist realism finally lost its authority. Pre-sunset phenomena began to increase. All this affected the artistic process: it lost its guidelines, a “vibration” arose in it, on the one hand, the proportion of artistic works and literary critical articles of an anti-humanistic and nationalist orientation increased, on the other hand, works of apocryphal-dissident and unofficial democratic content appeared .
In place of the lost definition, the following can be given, reflecting the features of the new stage of literary development: socialist realism is a method (method, tool) for constructing artistic reality and the corresponding artistic direction, absorbing the social and aesthetic experience of the twentieth century, carrying within itself the artistic concept: the world is not perfect, “the world must first be remade, and having remade it, you can sing”; the individual must be socially active in the cause of violent change in the world.
Self-awareness awakens in this person - a sense of self-worth and a protest against violence (P. Nilin “Cruelty”).
Despite the ongoing bureaucratic interference in the artistic process, despite the continued reliance on the idea of violent transformation of the world, the vital impulses of reality, the powerful artistic traditions of the past contributed to the emergence of a number of valuable works (Sholokhov’s story “The Fate of a Man”, M. Romm’s films “Ordinary Fascism” and “ Nine Days of One Year”, M. Kalatozov’s “The Cranes Are Flying”, G. Chukhrai’s “The Forty-First” and “The Ballad of a Soldier”, S. Smirnov’s “Belorussky Station”). I note that many of the most striking and historical works were dedicated to the Patriotic War against the Nazis, which is explained by the real heroism of the era, and the high civil-patriotic pathos that gripped the entire society during this period, and by the fact that the main conceptual setting of socialist realism (the creation of history through violence) during the war years coincided with both the vector of historical development and the national consciousness, and in this case did not contradict the principles of humanism.
Since the 60s. the art of socialist realism affirms the connection of man with the broad tradition of the national existence of the people (works by V. Shukshin and Ch. Aitmatov). In the first decades of its development, Soviet art (Vs. Ivanov and A. Fadeev in the images of Far Eastern partisans, D. Furmanov in the image of Chapaev, M. Sholokhov in the image of Davydov) captured images of people breaking away from the traditions and way of life of the old world. It would seem that there was a decisive and irrevocable break in the invisible threads connecting the personality with the past. However, the art of 1964-1984 pays increasing attention to how and what features a person is connected with centuries-old psychological, cultural, ethnographic, everyday, ethical traditions, because it turned out that a person who, in a revolutionary impulse, breaks with national tradition, is deprived of the soil for a socially expedient, humane life (Ch Aitmatov "White Steamer"). Without connection with national culture, a person turns out to be empty and destructively cruel.
A. Platonov put forward an artistic formula that was “ahead of its time”: “Without me, the people are not complete.” This is a wonderful formula - one of the highest achievements of socialist realism at its new stage (despite the fact that this position was put forward and artistically proven by the outcast of socialist realism - Platonov, it could only grow on the sometimes fertile, sometimes dead, and generally contradictory soil this artistic movement). The same idea about the merging of human life with the life of the people is also heard in Mayakovsky’s artistic formula: man “flows like a drop with the masses.” However, the new historical period is felt in Platonov’s emphasis on the intrinsic value of the individual.
The history of socialist realism has instructively demonstrated that what is important in art is not opportunism, but artistic truth, no matter how bitter and “inconvenient” it may be. The party leadership, the criticism that served it, and some postulates of socialist realism demanded “artistic truth” from the works, which coincided with the momentary situation and corresponded to the tasks set by the party. Otherwise, the work could be banned and thrown out of the artistic process, and the author would be persecuted or even ostracized.
History shows that the “banners” remained outside it, and the prohibited work was returned to it (for example, the poems by A. Tvardovsky “By the Right of Memory”, “Terkin in the Next World”).
Pushkin said: “Heavy damask steel, crushing glass, forges damask steel.” In our country, a terrible totalitarian force “fragmented” the intelligentsia, turning some into informers, others into drunkards, and others into conformists. However, in some, a deep artistic consciousness was forged, combined with vast life experience. This part of the intelligentsia (F. Iskander, V. Grossman, Yu. Dombrovsky, A. Solzhenitsyn) created profound and uncompromising works in the most difficult circumstances.
By even more decisively affirming the historically active personality, the art of socialist realism for the first time begins to realize the reciprocity of the process: not only the individual for history, but also history for the individual. Through the crackling slogans of serving a “happy future,” the idea of human self-worth begins to break through.
The art of socialist realism in the spirit of belated classicism continues to assert the priority of the “general”, state over the “private”, personal. The inclusion of the individual in the historical creativity of the masses continues to be preached. At the same time, in the novels of V. Bykov, Ch. Aitmatov, in the films of T. Abuladze, E. Klimov, and in the plays of A. Vasiliev, O. Efremov, G. Tovstonogov, not only does the theme of the individual’s responsibility to society, familiar to socialist realism, sound, but also a theme arises that prepares the idea of “perestroika”, the theme of society’s responsibility for the fate and happiness of a person.
Thus, socialist realism comes to self-negation. Within it (and not just outside it, in disgraced and underground art) an idea begins to sound: man is not fuel for history, providing energy for abstract progress. The future is created by people for people. A person must give himself to people; selfish isolation deprives life of meaning, turns it into absurdity (the promotion and approval of this idea is a merit of the art of socialist realism). If the spiritual growth of a person outside of society is fraught with degradation of the individual, then the development of society outside and apart from a person, contrary to his interests, is detrimental to both the individual and society. These ideas after 1984 will become the spiritual foundation of perestroika and glasnost, and after 1991 - the democratization of society. However, hopes for perestroika and democratization were far from being fully realized. The relatively soft, stable and socially concerned regime of the Brezhnev type (totalitarianism with an almost human face) was replaced by a corrupt, unstable terry democracy (oligarchy with an almost criminal face), concerned with the division and redistribution of public property, and not with the fate of the people and the state.
Just as the slogan of freedom put forward by the Renaissance “do what you want!” led to the crisis of the Renaissance (for not everyone wanted to do good), and the artistic ideas that prepared perestroika (all for man) turned into a crisis of both perestroika and the whole society, because bureaucrats and democrats considered only themselves and some of their own kind to be people; According to party, national and other group characteristics, people were divided into “ours” and “not ours.”
The fifth period (mid-80s - 90s) - the end of socialist realism (it did not survive socialism and Soviet power) and the beginning of the pluralistic development of domestic art: new trends in realism developed (V. Makanin), social art appeared (Melamid, Komar), conceptualism (D. Prigov) and other postmodern movements in literature and painting.
Nowadays, democratically and humanistically oriented art has two opponents, undermining and destroying the highest humanistic values of humanity. The first enemy of new art and new forms of life is social indifference, the egocentrism of the individual who celebrates the historical liberation from state control and has abdicated all responsibilities to society; self-interest of neophytes of the “market economy”. The other enemy is the leftist-lumpen extremism of those dispossessed by a self-interested, corrupt and stupid democracy, forcing people to look back at the communist values of the past with their herd collectivism that destroys the individual.
The development of society, its improvement must go through a person, in the name of the individual, and a self-valued personality, having unlocked social and personal egoism, must join the life of society and develop in accordance with it. This is a reliable reference point for art. Without affirming the need for social progress, literature degenerates, but it is important that progress occurs not in spite of or at the expense of man, but in his name. A happy society is one in which history moves through the channel of the individual. Unfortunately, this truth turned out to be unknown or uninteresting neither to the communist builders of the distant “bright future”, nor to shock therapists and other builders of the market and democracy. This truth is not very close to the Western defenders of individual rights, who rained bombs on Yugoslavia. For them, these rights are a tool in the fight against opponents and rivals, and not a real program of action.
The democratization of our society and the disappearance of party tutelage contributed to the publication of works whose authors strive to artistically comprehend the history of our society in all its drama and tragedy (the work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn “The Gulag Archipelago” is especially significant in this regard).
The idea of the aesthetics of socialist realism about the active influence of literature on reality turned out to be correct, but greatly exaggerated; in any case, artistic ideas do not become “material force.” Igor Yarkevich, in an article published on the Internet “Literature, aesthetics, freedom and other interesting things” writes: “Long before 1985, in all liberal-oriented parties it sounded like a motto: “If you publish the Bible and Solzhenitsyn tomorrow, then the day after tomorrow we will wake up in another country.” . Dominion over the world through literature - this idea warmed the hearts of not only the secretaries of the joint venture.”
It was thanks to the new atmosphere after 1985 that “The Tale of the Unextinguished Moon” by Boris Pilnyak, “Doctor Zhivago” by Boris Pasternak, “The Pit” by Andrei Platonov, “Life and Fate” by Vasily Grossman and other works that remained outside the reading circle for many years were published Soviet person. New films have appeared: “My Friend Ivan Lapshin”, “Plumbum, or a Dangerous Game”, “Is It Easy to Be Young”, “Taxi Blues”, “Should We Send a Messenger”. Films of the last one and a half decades of the twentieth century. they talk with pain about the tragedies of the past (“Repentance”), express concern for the fate of the younger generation (“Courier”, “Luna Park”), and talk about hopes for the future. Some of these works will remain in the history of artistic culture, and all of them pave the way to new art and a new understanding of the destinies of man and the world.
Perestroika created a special cultural situation in Russia.
Culture is dialogical. Changes in the reader and his life experience lead to changes in literature, not only in the emerging literature, but also in the existing one. Its content changes. “With fresh and present eyes” the reader reads literary texts and finds in them previously unknown meaning and value. This law of aesthetics is especially clearly manifested in critical epochs, when people's life experiences change dramatically.
The turning point of perestroika affected not only the social status and rating of literary works, but also the state of the literary process.
What is this condition like? All the main directions and trends of Russian literature have undergone a crisis, because the ideals, positive programs, options, and artistic concepts of the world they proposed turned out to be untenable. (The latter does not exclude the artistic significance of individual works, most often created at the cost of the writer’s departure from the concept of direction. An example of this is V. Astafiev’s relationship with village prose.)
The literature of the bright present and future (socialist realism in its “pure form”) has disappeared from culture in the last two decades. The crisis of the very idea of building communism deprived this direction of its ideological foundation and goals. The Gulag Archipelago alone is enough for all works that show life in a rosy light to reveal their falsity.
The newest modification of socialist realism, the product of its crisis, was the National Bolshevik movement of literature. In a state-patriotic form, this trend is represented by the work of Prokhanov, who glorified the export of violence in the form of the invasion of Soviet troops in Afghanistan. The nationalist form of this trend can be found in the works published by the magazines “Young Guard” and “Our Contemporary”. The collapse of this trend is clearly visible against the historical background of the flames that burned the Reichstag twice (in 1934 and 1945). And no matter how this direction develops, historically it has already been refuted and is alien to world culture.
I have already noted above that during the construction of the “new man”, connections with the deep layers of national culture were weakened and sometimes lost. This resulted in many disasters for the peoples on whom this experiment was carried out. And the worst of troubles was the new man’s readiness for interethnic conflicts (Sumgait, Karabakh, Osh, Fergana, South Ossetia, Georgia, Abkhazia, Transnistria) and civil wars (Georgia, Tajikistan, Chechnya). Anti-Semitism was complemented by rejection of “persons of Caucasian nationality.” The Polish intellectual Michnik is right: the highest and final stage of socialism is nationalism. Another sad confirmation of this is the non-peaceful divorce in Yugoslav style and peaceful divorce in Czechoslovak or Belovezhsk style.
The crisis of socialist realism gave birth to the literary movement of socialist liberalism in the 70s. The idea of socialism with a human face became the pillar of this movement. The artist performed a hairdressing operation: the Stalinist mustache was shaved off the face of socialism and a Leninist beard was glued on. M. Shatrov’s plays were created according to this scheme. This movement was forced to solve political problems through artistic means when other means were closed. Writers put makeup on the face of barracks socialism. Shatrov gave a liberal interpretation of our history for those times, an interpretation capable of both satisfying and enlightening the higher authorities. Many spectators were delighted with the fact that Trotsky was given a hint, and this was already perceived as a discovery, or the hint said that Stalin was not entirely good. This was received with delight by our half-suppressed intelligentsia.
V. Rozov’s plays were also written in the vein of socialist liberalism and socialism with a human face. His young hero destroys furniture in the house of a former security officer with his father's Budennov saber taken from the wall, which was once used to cut down the White Guard counter. Today, such temporarily progressive works have gone from being half-true and moderately attractive to being false. The age of their triumph was short.
Another current of Russian literature is lumpen intellectual literature. A lumpen intellectual is an educated person who knows something about something, does not have a philosophical view of the world, does not feel personal responsibility for it, and is accustomed to thinking “freely” within the framework of cautious fronderism. The lumpen writer owns an art form borrowed from the masters of the past, which gives his work some appeal. However, he is not given the opportunity to apply this form to the real problems of existence: his consciousness is empty, he does not know what to say to people. Lumpen intellectuals use an exquisite form to convey highly artistic thoughts about nothing. This often happens with modern poets who master poetic technique, but lack the ability to comprehend modernity. A lumpen writer puts forward his own alter ego as a literary hero, an empty, weak-willed, petty miscreant, capable of “grabbing what lies badly,” but incapable of love, unable to either give a woman happiness or become happy himself. This is, for example, the prose of M. Roshchin. A lumpen intellectual can be neither a hero nor a creator of high literature.
One of the products of the collapse of socialist realism was the neocritical naturalism of Kaledin and other exposers of the “lead abominations” of our army, cemetery and city life. This is everyday life writing like Pomyalovsky, only with less culture and less literary abilities.
Another manifestation of the crisis of socialist realism was the “camp” movement of literature. Unfortunately, many products
the writing of “camp” literature turned out to be at the level of the above-mentioned everyday life writing and lacked philosophical and artistic greatness. However, since these works dealt with everyday life that was unfamiliar to the general reader, its “exotic” details aroused great interest, and works that conveyed these details turned out to be socially significant and sometimes artistically valuable.
The literature of the Gulag brought into the people's consciousness the enormous tragic life experience of camp life. This literature will remain in the history of culture, especially in such its highest manifestations as the works of Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov.
Neo-emigrant literature (V. Voinovich, S. Dovlatov, V. Aksenov, Yu. Aleshkovsky, N. Korzhavin), living the life of Russia, has done a lot for the artistic understanding of our existence. “You can’t see faces face to face,” and even at an emigrant distance, writers really manage to see a lot of important things in a particularly bright light. In addition, neo-immigrant literature has its own powerful Russian emigrant tradition, which includes Bunin, Kuprin, Nabokov, Zaitsev, Gazdanov. Today, all emigrant literature has become part of our Russian literary process, part of our spiritual life.
At the same time, bad trends have emerged in the neo-emigrant wing of Russian literature: 1) division of Russian writers according to the following criteria: left (= decent and talented) - did not leave (= dishonest and mediocre); 2) a fashion has arisen: living in a cozy and well-fed distance, giving categorical advice and assessments of events on which the emigrant’s life almost does not depend, but which threaten the very lives of citizens in Russia. There is something immodest and even immoral in such “advice from an outsider” (especially when it is categorical and contains an undercurrent: you idiots in Russia don’t understand the simplest things).
Everything good in Russian literature was born as something critical, opposed to the existing order of things. This is fine. This is the only way in a totalitarian society that the birth of cultural values is possible. However, simple negation, simple criticism of what exists does not yet provide access to the highest literary achievements. Higher values appear along with a philosophical vision of the world and clear ideals. If Leo Tolstoy simply spoke about the abominations of life, he would be Gleb Uspensky. But this is not world level. Tolstoy developed the artistic concept of non-resistance to evil through violence, internal self-improvement of the individual; he argued that you can only destroy with violence, but you can build with love, and you should transform yourself first of all.
This concept of Tolstoy foresaw the twentieth century, and, if it had been heeded, it would have prevented the disasters of this century. Today she helps to understand and overcome them. We miss a concept of this magnitude, spanning our era and extending into the future. And when it appears, we will have great literature again. She is on her way, and the guarantee of this is the traditions of Russian literature and the tragic life experience of our intelligentsia, gained in the camps, in queues, at work and in the kitchen.
The pinnacles of Russian and world literature “War and Peace”, “Crime and Punishment”, “The Master and Margarita” are behind us and ahead. The fact that we had Ilf and Petrov, Platonov, Bulgakov, Tsvetaeva, Akhmatova gives confidence in the great future of our literature. The unique tragic life experience that our intelligentsia gained through suffering, and the great traditions of our artistic culture cannot but lead to the creative act of creating a new artistic world, to the creation of true masterpieces. No matter how the historical process goes and no matter what setbacks occur, the country, which has enormous potential, will historically emerge from the crisis. Artistic and philosophical achievements await us in the near future. They will come before economic and political achievements.