Zusammenfassung der Ressource
The State and
cultural change
- Lenin 1917-1924
- Got rid of "high art" as it represented the
feudal system and established true
proletarian art (aka Prolekult)
- Lenin didn't agree with the old definition
of art as it should be universal, not just
for the bourgeoisie
- 1920 --> Prolekult lost its independence
- Avant-garde experiemented with shapes and
colours --> collaborated with the Party to
produce new propaganda
- Stalin 1928-1953
- Argued that art should stay traditional
- 1930s --> Socialist Realism
- Art was realistic but with more factories and
farms involved to support Stalin's economic
policies
- Literature --> authors had to
ensure that ordinary people could
follow and relate to the plot
- Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) made bitter attacks on writers who adopted new,
experimental techniques --> they preferred works that stressed the achievements of workers and
they did their best to encourage cultural activities in factories with some success
- Overall culture was dominated by the control
of the government and highly conservative
- Cultural Revolution 1928-1932 became
part of the attempt to remove old
"bourgeois" elements of society
- Full scale assault on traditional writers and artists
- The government banned
saxophones in the 1940s due to its
use in jazz music
- Khrushchev 1953-1964
- Wanted more cultural freedom (within
reason) and an alliance between those in
the Arts and the Party
- 1953-1954 --> allowed publications of new literature
- 1956-1957 --> following his Secret Speech, cultural liberalisation
- 1961-1962 --> after Stalin's body was
removed from Red Square, many books were
published that criticised him
- Refused to accept the widespread conformity that
Stalin had relied upon --> encouraged people to
challenge it and be innovative and creative
- Brezhnev 1964-1982
- Abandoned cultural liberalisation
- Essentially had show trials for
non-conformist artists
- The trial of Joseph Brodsky --> 1964
- He was a poet that read his work at secret gatherings, he was
arrested as he wasn't licensed under the Writers' Union --> he was
sentenced to 5 years' hard labour in prison on the grounds that he'd
produced nothing of material value to the Soviet state
- The trial of Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel --> 1966
- They had written novels that depicted Soviet life as
harsh and surreal, they were arrested and accused of
ant-Soviet propaganda --> Sinyavsky was sentenced to 7
years in a strict regime labour camp and Daniel was
sentenced to 5 years
- Dissident theatre
performances were
raided by the police
- Authorities very
suspicious of any groups
that championed freedom
of expression