Control Art Flashcards
What were initial Bolshevik thoughts on cultural policy?
Divided:
- some thought art should be used as control method
- others thought art should be allowed to develop, especially among workers
Not enough urgency though
What was the ministry of culture called?
Commissariat of Enlightenment
When was the commissiariat for enlightenment established
1917
What did the C of Enlightenment do?
- encouraged artists to work with regime
- same ideas and values
Art in the old regime:
- heavy art censorship
- hope that the bolsheviks would be more lenient
Were the Bolsheviks more lenient than the old regime?
Yes - shown by tolerance of fellow travelers, freedom in style in Avant Garde and encouragement to create a new culture of the proletariat of prolekult
Fellow travelers:
- coined by Trotsky
- tolerated non communist artists
- artists were inspired by the revolution and changing times
- artists non communist but sympathetic to Bolshevik values
Were fellow travelers accepted by all communists
No
What was the first Bolshevik cultural movement?
Prolekult
Who promoted and designed prolekult?
Bogdanov and lunacharsky
Who was head of the commissariat of enlightenment?
Lunacharsky
What was prolekults aim?
- challenge high culture and bourgeoise influence
- create proletarian artists, nurturing art among working people
- use new tech and influence of factories to inspire culture for the proletariat
- reflect values of new society - collectivism
Constructivists
Members of the assembled proletarian group of artists who wanted to create proletarian culture
Examples of peasant created culture
- festivals on socialism (rations given out to increase popularity
- workers write own stories and make own production
- smithy magazine to publicise proletarian poetry
- 1920 anniversary of rev = 8000 person reenactment of storming the winter palace
Issues with prolekult
- too much freedom of expression - could the proletariat be trusted? Not controlled by party
- Lenin disagreed with strictly proletarian art - art should be universal in society
- some art too difficult to understand
What is avant garde?
Abstract art which represents the changing times of revolution
What were the key art styles of avant garde?
- abstract
- futurism
- modernism
- changing times, optimism and new ideas represented
Did the government use avant garde?
Artists teamed up with the government to produce propaganda art - however fellow travelers were still tollerated
Example of govt. using propaganda artist
- Mayakovsky
- poet and playrite
- slogans and graphic posters for propaganda - especially useful in the civil war
Fellow traveller avant garde artists
Malevich and Kandinsky
Failure of avant garde theatre
- meyerhold
- ‘mystery Bouffe’ pageant
- workers defeating their exploiters = revolutionary and communist sentiment
- too complex and cancelled after one performance
Cinema in avant garde
Sergei Einstein:
1924 - strike
1925 - Battleship Potemkin
- sometimes imagery too experimental
Successful director in the Soviet Union:
Sergei einstein
Stalins views on avantgarde and prolekult
- criticised freedom that was allowed
- thought was too experimental and didn’t achieve sweeping away old, bourgeoise influence
Why did Stalin introduce the cultural revolution?
- freedom under Lenin criticised
- 5yp and collectivisation meant the END of the bourgeois and kulak classes (so their culture needed to be gone too)
- to motivate workers in industrialisation effort
- finally sweep away bourgeois influence
Did the cultural revolution support fellow travelers and traditional artists?
No - it was an attack
How was Komsomol used in the Cultural revolution
- youth organisation of the communist party
- used to root out and snitch on old “bourgeoise elements’
- eg: booed theatre productions that were too bourgeois
What was introduced in the cultural revolution to monitor literature?
RAPP:
- Russian Association of Proletarian Writers
What did RAPP do:
- condemn fellow travelers
- didn’t like writers who focused on individualism
- didn’t like experimental technique
- opposed bourgeoise writing