Liberation from Socialist Realism or Its Transformations?: Literature and Other Arts in the Late Soviet Period

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

The term “socialist realism”, coined in 1932 and central to Soviet creativity, gradually began losing its preeminence status in the 1950s, after Stalin’s death. However, it remained the most important term in public discourse until the end of the Soviet era. Actors in late Soviet culture had to play the “game”, which meant either following the “canon” by adapting it to the new political environment, or resisting or even ignoring it, although the so-called “strategy of ignorance” also implied awareness of socialist realism’ aesthetic forms if only in order to avoid reiterating them. How and to what extent did Soviet aesthetics of the 1970s and 1980s continue the traditions of socialist realist art of the earlier period? How was socialist realism altered in the late Soviet period? Our panel will discuss these questions.

Sub Unit

• Anthropology, Cultural Studies

Chair

• Evgeny A. Dobrenko, U of Venice (Italy)

Papers

• 'Socialist Realism' after Stalin’s Death: Rethinking the Notion - Valery Vyugin, Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) RAS (Russia)

• Seduced by Socialist Realism: Art of Post-1989 Leningrad - Liana Battsaligova, Oberlin College

• Transformation or Iteration?: Socialist Realism in the Works of Chingiz Aitmatov - Alexey Shvyrkov, Columbia U

• The Soviet TV Show 'Song of the Year': The Socialist-Realist 'Canon' in Popular Music - Daria Zhurkova, State Institute for Art Studies (Russia)

Discussant

• Mark N. Lipovetsky, Columbia U