6. FROM AVANT-GARDE TO SOCIALIST REALISM

KEY QUESTIONS What is socialist realism? How do we get from the avant-garde to socialist realism? In what way was socialist realism part of a broader ‘cultural revolution’?

Is it a doctrine? SOCIALIST REALISM “Comrade Stalin has called our writers engineers of human souls. What does this mean? … In the first place, it means knowing life so as to be able to depict it truthfully in works of art, not to depict it in a dead, scholastic way, not simply as “objective reality,” but to depict reality in its revolutionary development.” A.Zhdanov, Speech at First Congress of Soviet Writers, 1934

A reaction to formalism? SOCIALIST REALISM A reaction to formalism?

Is it a state of mind? SOCIALIST REALISM “In the socialist-realist view of the world, a dry, half-dug ditch signified a future canal full of loaded barges, a ruined church was a potential kolkhoz clubhouse, and the inscription of a project in the Five-Year Plan was a magical act of creation that might almost obviate the need for more concrete exertions.” Sheila Fitzpatrick, Becoming Cultured: Socialist Realism and the Representation of Taste and Privilege in The Cultural Front. Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), p.217.

Is it a revolt against elite taste? SOCIALIST REALISM Is it a revolt against elite taste? “Everything described in this book happens in fragments, with more and more new characters appearing and frequent repetition of what has been said already, with some kind of foolish [chapter] titles … The entire content of this book seems to be some kind of chaos of ides … I’d also say it’s hard to understand where the beginning and ending are. As a whole, I’d say one thing: the book’s difficult to read and hard to understand.” Workers review of Pilniak’s Naked Year, from The Voice of the Worker-Reader (1929), quoted in Evgeny Dobrenko, The Making of the State Reader (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), p.130.

Is it a historical movement? SOCIALIST REALISM Is it a historical movement?

Is it a historical movement? SOCIALIST REALISM Is it a historical movement?

HOW DID WE GET HERE?

QUESTIONS What does Groys characterise as the main aim of the avant-garde aesthetic project? Give examples. How was the avant-garde project defeated, according to Groys? "Under Stalin the dream of the avant-garde was in fact fulfilled" (9) On what grounds does Groys argue this? According to Groys, what is the avant-garde’s relationship to artistic tradition? How does this contrast to socialist realism?

QUESTIONS How are politicians and artists connected in Groys‘s view? What is the 'typical' in socialist realism? Explain Groys‘s use of the 'hagiographic' and 'demonological' in socialist realism Who, for Groys, is the socialist realist 'demiurge' and why? Based on your reading, how was politics aestheticised and aesthetics politicised in the Soviet Union's first two decades?

“Socialist realism was a break with the avant-garde” DEBATE “Socialist realism was a break with the avant-garde” Discuss amongst yourselves for 10 minutes, then we will begin the debate …

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