3- Culture (limitations +p3) Flashcards
Unsuccessful aspects- Lenin
The Bolshevikd did not see culture as a priority. Lenin accomodated those artists who were not communist but who were sympathetic to the ideals of the Revolution, ‘Fellow Travellers’, not all Bolsheviks were happy with this approach. By the early 1920s the govt was concerned at the variety of viewpoints expressed through Prolekult from the people so had to impose restrictions on it.
Avant-Garde- in the theatre, Mystery Bouffe 1918 was a fantasy based on the workers defeating their exploiters but so confusing to audiences that it was cancelled after one performance. Cinema was sometimes too sophisticated for the audience, preventing the moulding of people’s beliefs and values.
Unsuccessful aspects- STALIN
duuring CR, same theme repeated ‘boy meets girl meets tractor.’ soon lost popularity.
Resistance to Socialist Realism- some writers conformed to the rules byt the quality of their work suffered; others refused to work under such restrictions and emigrated. The novelist, Boris Pasternake, and the poet, Anna Akhamatova, gave up writing, opting for what the writer, Isaac Babel, called ‘the genre of silence.’ Better to stick to well=worn themes than experiment if you wished to carry on working. SR out of touch with reality.
Unsuccessful aspects- Khrushchev
De-stalinistation unleashed criticisms of the Soviet system. e.g. Sholokhov went as far as to openly describe official Soviet culture as ‘grey trash’. Writers began to explore new themes such as spiritual concerns, the bleakness of rural life and the problems of adultery, divorce and alcohol abuse. This ‘literature of conscience’ did not focus on the idealised life portrayed by Socialist Realism. Even low-brow’ literature was used to criticise the Soviet system. Science-fiction novels often contained messages that acted as critiques of society.
Unsuccessful aspects- Brezhnev - part 1
Many artists continued to push the boundaries of what was acceptable. Historian Richard Stites- ‘the graveyard of ideas, openness and free expression’
‘Russites’ alienated non-Russians and often came close to criticising the Soviet Union (Russian nationalism).
Soviet youth continued to be drawn towards cultural trends in the West. Vladimir Vysotsky emerged as an influential guitar-poet whose songs of sex and delinquincy were popular with young people. His funeral in 1980 saw an outpouring of grief that worried the government. It seemed to indicate the growing alienation of young people from Soviet society.
Unsuccessful aspects BREZHNEV- part 2
Control over record production and radio airtime, but undermined by the development of the cassette recorder, which was, by the early 1980s, widely available for personal reading and distribution.
By the early 1980s, nonconformity in the cultural sphere had continued to cause the government irritation. Artists and writers continued to use a range of responses to avoid conforming to the roles expected of them by the government. Some chose emigration or were forced into exile, others refused to work. The Brezhnev years had made it easier to undermine the system by using subtexts in their work. Readers and audiences became skillful at grasping the messages behind the work.
Abstract and experimental art continued to be a source of conflict with the government. In 1970,
the local art gallery director at Novosibirsk was sentenced to eight years in prison for displaying art by dissident painters. In 1975, a group of unofficial artists put on an open-air exhibition of their own work. Clashes between nonconformist artists and the govt were the cause of much bad publicity for the SU in the West.
P3- Nonconformity actually not that significant. Why?
HOWEVER, less significance within the USSR. Most artists and writers preferred to keep their heads down, conform and avoid trouble with the authorities. More often than not, the general public were happy with the traditional cultural output provided by the govt; undemanding art and entertainment was preferred to more intellectually stimulating work. Nonconformist artists were often viewed by the general public as self-indulgent and out of touch with the harsh realities of daily life.
P3- The trial of Joseph Brodsky 1964 and The trial of Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel 1966 could show that Soviet cultural policy’s success was not undermined by nonconformiity and the government were able to maintain control despite the amount of terror reducing. Joseph Brodsky
poems read aloud at secret gatherings. arrested by the secret police because he was not licensed as a poet under the Writers’ Union. He was accused of ‘parasitism’. His trial was being used to send a firm message to all those artists who wished to work independently of the state. Dealt with severely and sentenced to five years of hard labour in prison, on the grounds that he had produced nothing of material value to the Soviet state. expelled from su . indicates that, despite the cultural thaw of the Khrushchev years, there were limits to what Brezhnev’s govt was prepared to tolerate.
P3- Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel
They had written short novels that depicted life in SU as harsh and surreal. accused of anti-Soviet propaganda under Article 70 of the criminal code. On 10 Feb 1966, the court sentenced Sinyavsky to 7 years in a strict-regime labour camp and Yuli 5 years. Harsh sentences designed to send a warning to others.
Why was the Daniel and Sinyavsky trial a significant threat
Their arrest resulted in a demonstration of over 200 students from Sinyavsky’s
institute and an open letter of support for the accused signed by 63 leading intellectuals. Over 200
letters were sent to the Twenty-third Party Congress asking for the case to be reviewed. The trial was
a tricky moment for the regime as it combined the threat of nonconformity with that of the dissidents.
Unsuccessful aspects- Khrushchev part 2
Tired with the repetitive and unexciting themes of official cultural output, Soviet youth became influenced by music tastes from the West. Urban groups developed that listened to the pop and rock’n’roll music emerging in the West, the records having being smuggled into the country. These groups, wearing Western fashions of tight suits and short skirts, were labelled stilyagi by the authorities.
Tape recordings meant disallowed works could be spread to a wider audience. Magnitizdat, or tape recorder self-publishing, was a constant headache for the authoritie. e.g. guitar-poet Alexander Galich, who composed and performed his own work rather thaan performing officially sanctioned peieces produced by the government. Pasternak’s novel affiar was a cause of international embarrassment for the Soviet government. Smuggled abroad noble prize for literature
abstract art nonconformity
