“Socialist realism” is a term for the communist theory of literature and art, depending on purely political principles, and since 1934 has been mandatory for Soviet literature, literary criticism and literary criticism, as well as for all artistic life. This term was first used on May 20, 1932 by I. Gronsky, chairman of the organizing committee Union of Writers of the USSR(corresponding party resolution dated April 23, 1932, Literaturnaya Gazeta, 1932, May 23.). In 1932/33, Gronsky and the head of the fiction sector of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) V. Kirpotin vigorously promoted this term. It received retroactive force and was extended to previous works of Soviet writers recognized by party criticism: all of them became examples of socialist realism, starting with Gorky’s novel “Mother”.
Boris Gasparov. Socialist realism as a moral problem
The definition of socialist realism given in the first charter of the Union of Writers of the USSR, with all its ambiguity, remained the starting point for later interpretations. Socialist realism was defined as the main method of Soviet fiction and literary criticism, “which requires the artist to truthfully, historically specific depiction of reality in its revolutionary development. Moreover, the truthfulness and historical specificity of the artistic depiction of reality must be combined with the task of ideological remodeling and education in the spirit of socialism.” The relevant section of the 1972 charter stated: “The proven creative method of Soviet literature is socialist realism, based on the principles of party membership and nationality, the method of a truthful, historically specific depiction of reality in its revolutionary development. Socialist realism provided Soviet literature with outstanding achievements; having inexhaustible wealth artistic means and styles, it opens up all possibilities for manifestation individual characteristics talent and innovation in all genres of literary creativity.”
Thus, the basis of socialist realism is the idea of literature as an instrument of ideological influence CPSU, limiting it to the tasks of political propaganda. Literature should help the party in the struggle for the victory of communism; in a formulation attributed to Stalin, writers from 1934 to 1953 were seen as “engineers of human souls.”
The principle of partisanship required the rejection of the empirically observed truth of life and its replacement with “party truth.” A writer, critic or literary critic had to write not what he himself learned and understood, but what the party declared “typical”.
The requirement for a “historically specific image of reality in revolutionary development” meant the adaptation of all phenomena of the past, present and future to the teaching historical materialism in its latest party edition at that time. So for example, Fadeev had to rewrite the novel "The Young Guard", which received Stalin Prize, because in retrospect, based on educational and propaganda considerations, the party wanted its supposedly leading role in the partisan movement to be more clearly visible.
The depiction of modernity “in its revolutionary development” implied a rejection of the description of imperfect reality for the sake of the expected ideal society (proletarian paradise). One of the leading theoreticians of socialist realism, Timofeev, wrote in 1952: “The future is revealed as tomorrow, already born in today and illuminating it with its light.” From such premises, alien to realism, the idea of a “positive hero” arose, who was supposed to serve as a model as a builder of a new life, an advanced personality, not subject to any doubts, and it was expected that this ideal character of the communist tomorrow would become the main hero of the works of socialist realism. Accordingly, socialist realism demanded that a work of art should always be based on the principles of "optimism", which should reflect the communist belief in progress, as well as prevent feelings of depression and unhappiness. The depiction of defeats in the Second World War and human suffering in general was contrary to the principles of socialist realism, or at least should have been outweighed by the depiction of victories and positive aspects. In the sense of the internal inconsistency of the term, the title of Vishnevsky’s play “Optimistic Tragedy” is indicative. Another term often used in connection with socialist realism, “revolutionary romance,” helped to obscure the departure from reality.
In the mid-1930s, “nationality” joined the demands of socialist realism. Returning to the trends that existed among part of the Russian intelligentsia of the second half of the 19th century, this meant both the understandability of literature for the common people and the use of folk speech patterns and proverbs. Among other things, the principle of nationality served to suppress new forms of experimental art. Although socialist realism, in its concept, did not know national boundaries and, in accordance with the messianic faith in the conquest of the whole world by communism, after the Second World War was exhibited in the countries of the Soviet sphere of influence, nevertheless, its principles also included patriotism, that is, limitedness in mainly the USSR as the setting and emphasizing the superiority of everything Soviet. When the concept of socialist realism was applied to writers from Western or developing countries, it meant a positive assessment of their communist, pro-Soviet orientation.
In essence, the concept of socialist realism refers to the content of a verbal work of art, and not to its form, and this led to the fact that the formal tasks of art were deeply neglected by Soviet writers, critics and literary scholars. Since 1934, the principles of socialist realism have been interpreted and demanded for implementation with varying degrees of persistence. Failure to follow them could entail deprivation of the right to be called a “Soviet writer,” exclusion from the SP, even imprisonment and death, if the depiction of reality was outside “its revolutionary development,” that is, if a critical attitude towards the existing order was recognized as hostile and damaging damage to the Soviet system. Criticism of existing orders, especially in the forms of irony and satire, is alien to socialist realism.
After Stalin's death, many indirectly but sharply criticized socialist realism, blaming it for the decline of Soviet literature. Appeared in the years Khrushchev's thaw demands for sincerity, vital conflicts, depictions of doubting and suffering people, works whose outcome would not be known, were put forward by famous writers and critics and testified that socialist realism is alien to reality. The more fully these demands were implemented in some works of the Thaw period, the more energetically they were attacked by conservatives, and the main reason was an objective description of the negative phenomena of Soviet reality.
The parallels to socialist realism are not found in 19th century realism, but rather in 18th century classicism. The vagueness of the concept contributed to the emergence of pseudo-discussions from time to time and the immense growth of literature on socialist realism. For example, in the early 1970s, the question of the relationship between such varieties of socialist realism as “socialist art” and “democratic art” was clarified. But these “discussions” could not obscure the fact that socialist realism was a phenomenon of an ideological order, subordinate to politics, and that it was fundamentally not subject to discussion, like the very leading role of the Communist Party in the USSR and the countries of “people's democracy.”
Socialist realism (Prof. Gulyaev N.A., Associate Professor Bogdanov A.N.)
Socialist realism arose at the beginning of the 20th century, in the era of imperialism, when the contradictions inherent in bourgeois society reached their limit, when the proletariat, led by the communist parties, launched a victorious struggle to gain power and for the socialist system of life. This method was further developed after October Revolution and the formation of the world socialist system, winning the hearts and souls of the most advanced writers of not only socialist, but also capitalist countries. Currently, under the banner of the new realistic art they are fighting best artists peace. Socialist realism - leading artistic method modernity, high quality new stage in the artistic development of all humanity.
Method and revolutionary struggle of the era
The innovation of the work of socialist realists is determined primarily by their deep comprehension of the new in reality itself. The heroic performances of the working class, the national liberation movement of colonial and dependent peoples, the construction of socialism and communism in the USSR created in the 20th century. conditions for creativity such as have never been known in human history.
The revolutionary struggle gave the progressive writer material of exceptional aesthetic value: intense social conflicts, unprecedented in scope, genuine heroes - people of revolutionary action, with powerful characters and a bright individuality. She armed him with a clear social and aesthetic ideal. All this allowed communist-minded artists to create art of great passions, great social and psychological drama, deeply human in its essence.
Proletarian revolutions, having clearly revealed all the best that lies in the working people and their communist vanguard (selfless devotion to freedom, humanity, purity of moral motives, willpower and exceptional courage), thereby revealed to the maximum extent the aesthetic riches of life, creating objective prerequisites for the emergence of realistic literature of a new type.
It is quite natural that socialist realism first arose in Russia. The Russian proletariat had the greatest revolutionary activity; it was led by a truly revolutionary Marxist-Leninist party, which, before others, led the masses to storm capitalism and inspired them to fight for building a socialist and communist society. The heroic struggle of the Russian working class for power, for socialist public relations even before 1917 she received her artistic reflection in the works of M. Gorky ("Mother", "Enemies", "Summer"), A. Serafimovich ("Bombs", "City in the Steppe"), D. Bedny and other representatives of new realistic art.
The formation of socialist realism in Russia was determined not only by the revolutionary liberation movement, but also by the advanced artistic traditions of Russian literature and the high level of development of Russian aesthetic thought. Special significance had the work of Russian classics of the 19th century. and aesthetic ideas of Russian revolutionary democrats.
In the works of socialist realists, for the first time in the history of literature, the tasks of the working class and its striving for communism received a clear expression. Social ideal was understood by them not only as a dream, but also as a completely achievable goal in the struggle for the socialist transformation of society.
Socialist realism is an art that actively campaigns for the accomplishment of the socialist revolution, for the communist system of life, for the freedom and happiness of man on earth. His liberating, humanistic mission (first of all, gives him innovative features. The struggle for the ideal in the works of socialist realists is carried out in the form of a truthful reproduction of living reality. processes of history. By its very nature, socialist realism is alien to illustrativeness. You are promoting the victory of new forces in Russia, in its struggle for freedom,” they wrote to the founder of socialist realism, M. Gorky, in the first year of the revolution American writers and artists *. The works of Soviet writers introduced readers of Russia and foreign countries with truthful pictures of brutal class battles for the freedom of the people, thereby helping people of different nationalities to embark on the path of revolutionary struggle, inspired them, and instilled faith in victory. The Marseille worker's review of Serafimovich's epic is one of the many evidences of this: I really liked “Iron Stream”, and I noticed that all the best wrestlers like it; the most active, for whom revolutionary action has become a necessity... Many proletarians feel the same impatience, it squeezes our hearts too... Therefore, reading “The Iron Stream” means participating a little in the Revolution, joining a human flow that nothing can stop" ** .
* (Quote from the book: "Soviet literature abroad". M., "Science", 1962, p. 48.)
** (Soviet literature abroad, p. 54.)
By historically accurate and artistically impressively recreating episodes from the front-line and peaceful life of our people, Soviet writers contributed to exposing the slanderous fabrications of the bourgeois press about our reality. “If you want to know what labor is like in a socialist society, read V. Azhaev’s novel “Far from Moscow,” the Englishman D. Lindsay addressed his compatriots. “This book should be given to those confused people who have completely or partially fallen into slanderers' bait about forced labor in the Soviet Union and "totalitarian control." When you finish it, you will recognize all its main characters as your old friends, and you will feel as deeply concerned about the success of the oil pipeline as they do. I don’t know of a single book that would make the topic of labor so all-consuming, dramatic and humanly exciting."
* (Quote according to the book: S. Filippovich. The book goes around the world, page 71.)
Books by writers of socialist realism actively intruded and are invading the very thick of life, helping to resolve complex issues of life practice. In this regard, Sholokhov’s novel “Virgin Soil Upturned” played an extremely important role.
Leonov's novel "Russian Forest", like many other books by Soviet writers, caused heated discussions among forestry specialists and among wide circles Soviet public. “I, and as a forest specialist, would like to note that having deeply analyzed the state of forestry and the urgent needs of forests, the author of “Russian Forest” was able to accurately find sore spots in it and expose bleeding wounds in the forest organism,” wrote Doctor of Agricultural Sciences N. Anuchin *. This book contributed to the fight to preserve the "green friend". From the standpoint of the communist party, artists of socialist realism also revealed serious shortcomings in agriculture and helped the people and government to outline ways to overcome them.
* (Readers, about L. Leonov’s novel “Russian Forest”. "Literary Newspaper", 1954, March 23.)
The ability to correctly understand trends in social development enables Soviet writers to correctly navigate the complex whirlpool of political events.
The Marxist-Leninist worldview provides the artist with the opportunity to understand reality in its movement towards communism, to appreciate the poetry of the heroism of the revolutionary struggle, the beauty of new socialist relations. It gives the writer those wings that help him see life in the correct historical perspective.
Genesis of socialist realism
New socialist art has historically developed on the basis of the use of centuries-old artistic experience of peoples. It absorbed both the realistic and romantic traditions of writers from different countries and nations. Their search for artistic means of deeply reflecting the truth of life in art was continued by the socialist realists.
One of the most important sources of the new art was the work of proletarian poets associated with Chartism (Linton, Jones, Massey), with the revolution of 1848 in Germany (Heine, Herweg, Weert, Freilitrat) and especially with the Paris Commune (Potier, Michel, etc. .). In Russian revolutionary poetry of the proletariat, the songs of L. Radin, G. Krzhizhanovsky and other participants in the Marxist movement of the 90s are close to the works of socialist realism. The close connection with socialist ideology, pronounced tendentiousness, and the revolutionary propaganda orientation of the work of foreign and Russian proletarian poets - all this anticipates the literature of socialist realism. It is no coincidence that Pothier’s “Internationale” in the Russian translation by A. Kots, and “Bravely, comrades, in step”, and G. Krzhizhanovsky’s “Varshavyanka” became the favorite songs of the workers and still retain their powerful propaganda force.
However, a significant mistake is the identification of all proletarian art, both in the past and in the present, with socialist realism. In reality, the concept of “proletarian art” is much more capacious and broad: it also includes the work of artists who take a socialist position, but are far from the realistic principles of reflecting life. Thus, almost all the immediate predecessors of socialist realism, including Radin and Kots, took the position of progressive romanticism. The path from this method is early work Gorky, Tikhonov, Malyshkin, and Vishnevsky, representatives of the most diverse stages of Soviet literature, moved towards socialist realism.
Mastering the artistic achievements of critical realism was important in the development of new art. Proletarian writers learned from L. Tolstoy, Chekhov and other classics not only excellent craftsmanship realistic typification, they continued and developed their humanistic and democratic traditions. N.G. Chernyshevsky and his associates were especially close to them. In Chernyshevsky's novel "What to do?" and other works of revolutionary democrats of the 60s showed how participation in the struggle for the future spiritually transforms people. However, even the best of these books were characterized by elements of abstraction, allegory and fantasy in their depiction of the ways of struggle for socialist ideals. Chernyshevsky was forced to resort either to hints, omissions (when presenting the biography of Rakhmetov), or to utopian fiction (the dreams of Vera Pavlovna). A more specific image social activities“new people”: organizing sewing workshops, educational events, etc., were distinguished by their utopianism and were far from reality. It is no coincidence that all attempts to organize such communes by V. Sleptsov and other followers of Chernyshevsky were doomed to failure. All this testified to a certain limitation of critical realism in depicting the sprouts of the new, that which was just emerging and establishing itself.
Attaching great importance to the new proletarian socialist art, K. Marx and F. Engels justifiably criticized its representatives for the lack of historical specificity and depth of depiction of life. They presciently predicted the emergence of a new artistic method that would combine socialist ideology with the richness of realistic form. The drama of the future, according to Engels, should represent “a complete fusion of great ideological depth, conscious historical content... with Shakespearean liveliness and richness of action” *.
* (K. Marx and F. Engels on art, vol. 1, p. 23.)
New realistic art, according to the founders of scientific communism, will grow on the basis of a developed liberation struggle; it will reflect historically specific development trends - the crisis of capitalist society and the inevitability of the victory of the socialist revolution. Their predictions are confirmed by the emergence and development of a new artistic method in Russia, where at the end of the 19th century. the center of the revolutionary proletarian movement moved and where the realistic traditions were strongest.
Development of socialist realism in the literature of foreign countries
Nevertheless, attempts to present socialist realism only as a property of Russian literature, and to explain its further spread throughout the world by the direct influence of Soviet art, are completely unfounded. The creativity of artists who mastered the new method abroad was generated by life itself, the practice of the revolutionary liberation struggle. Despite many common features, the liberation movement develops in each country in its own way and has a number of specific features, reflected in the literature. “Methods developed in a socialist country,” said D. Lindsay in his speech at the Second Congress of Soviet Writers, “cannot be adopted mechanically, indiscriminately. They must be sifted and applied in their own way, otherwise they can lead to counterproductive results.”
The emergence of socialist realism abroad occurred not only under the influence of their own revolutionary experience, but also under the influence of their own artistic traditions. The emergence of a new method in Iceland is also associated with the creative processing of the oral poetic heritage of the people, and above all the sagas. This is convincingly evidenced by the works of H. Laxness, whose work in its own way objective meaning close to socialist realism. In his novels and stories “Independent People”, “The Icelandic Bell”, “Salka Valka”, “Nuclear Plant” and others, the central place is occupied by a man of great courage, reminiscent of the heroes of ancient sagas. He leads the people's struggle for the national independence of their homeland, opposes the aggressive policies of the United States, takes part in the proletarian movement, remaining faithful to the socialist ideal.
In the literature of African countries that have recently won national freedom, the establishment of a new method occurs under even more difficult conditions. The influence of folklore here collides with the influence of traditions coming from the literature of the former metropolises.
Socialist realists rely in their work on progressive traditions various directions and methods. In the development of I. Becher’s creativity, not only proletarian poets and classics of the 18th century, but also German romantics played a major role. "When we talk about our beautiful German“We first of all think about Goethe, Schiller, Hölderlin, Hein...,” he asserted. “All of them... generously gifted our people with masterpieces of verbal art...” *.
* (I. Becher. My love, poetry. M., 1965, p. 80.)
The emergence and establishment of socialist realism in Russia and abroad did not occur in isolation. The enormous importance of A. M. Gorky and V. V. Mayakovsky in the development of a new method in the West and East is well known. Their works helped advanced foreign writers establish yourself in new creative positions.
Socialist realists of all countries serve one great goal - the establishment of communism. Under these conditions, creative interaction between writers different nations turns out to be the most close and fruitful.
International literary contacts in a variety of forms especially expanded after the Second World War, during the formation of the world socialist system. The post-war era was marked by close interaction national cultures, an intensive exchange of spiritual values of all peoples who have embarked on the path of building a new life. However, literary influences have never been the determining factor in the development of art. Literature progresses primarily under the influence of those changes that occur in life itself, in the practice of revolutionary transformations. Similar social conditions give rise to related literary processes.
Almost simultaneously with Russia, socialist realism originated in Denmark, where in 1906-1911. M. A. Nexa created the novel “Pelle the Conqueror,” which received a positive assessment from V. I. Lenin *. The appearance of this work was caused primarily by the revolutionary struggle of the Danish people, in particular by the powerful strike of 1898. The progressive traditions of Scandinavian literature also had a fruitful influence on its creation. On the national soil, the sprouts of a new art emerged in A. Barbusse’s work “Fire,” which skillfully shows the awakening of the revolutionary consciousness of the masses.
* (See: F. Narkirier. M. A. Nexe and the emergence of socialist realism in Denmark. In: "The Genesis of Socialist Realism in the Literatures of Western Countries." M., 1965.)
Feeding on the juices of the liberation movement, socialist realism in our era has become the leading artistic method of our time. He gathered under his banner the most progressive writers in the world - D. Aldridge, D. Lindsay (England); A. Style, P. Dex, P. Eluard (France); N. Hikmeta (Türkiye); P. Neruda (Chile); J. Amado (Brazil) and many others.
Development of socialist realism in Russian literature
Writers of socialist realism achieved especially great success in the USSR and other socialist countries. After the October Revolution, the most favorable conditions for the flourishing of culture were created in the country of the Soviets. A. M. Gorky, V. V. Mayakovsky and many other Soviet prose writers, poets and playwrights made a valuable contribution to world literature and had a huge influence on the development of a new artistic method abroad.
Based on the successful and intensive development of the new art, its theoretical understanding became possible.
Marxists turned to defining the basic principles of socialist realism even at its inception. V. I. Lenin in his brilliant article “Party Organization and Party Literature” substantiated the basic principle of the new method - communist partisanship - and characterized the defining features of the new literature: connection with the revolutionary struggle of the working class , with socialist ideology, serving the working people. “This will be,” wrote V.I. Lenin, “free literature, fertilizing the last word of the revolutionary thought of mankind with the experience and living work of the socialist proletariat...” *.
* (V. I. Lenin on literature and art, p. 90.)
A.V. Lunacharsky, V.V. Borovsky, M. Olminsky and other Marxist critics in their articles and speeches also predicted the possibility of forming a new art of the proletariat and determined its originality: socialist ideology, the ability to depict life in a broad historical perspective. In 1907, in the article “Tasks of Social-Democratic Artistic Creativity,” Lunacharsky expressed his opinion about the emergence of proletarian realism in Social-Democratic fiction. And in 1914 Olminsky noted such the most important features method of proletarian literature, as the ability, based on a deep study of reality, to identify trends in its development: “Only by having before your eyes... a beacon of the final goal, you do not turn the movement into a fruitless hustle. People of the class that is afraid to look into the future will call your goal a utopia , - do not be afraid of words. If only your “utopia” was the fruit of a conscientious and impartial study of development trends, you can be sure that in the end it will be your sober opponents who are groundless utopians."
* (M. Olminsky. For literary questions. M., 1932, p. 64.)
Even in the pre-revolutionary years, M. Gorky sought to give a theoretical interpretation of the features of the new artistic method. His awareness of the uniqueness of the new realistic art developed in the struggle against decadence, against those moods of pessimism and disbelief in the future that gripped certain layers of the Russian intelligentsia during the years of reaction. Most decisively condemning writers who forget about their civic duty, Gorky called on them to get closer to the people, who, after centuries of hibernation, woke up to revolutionary action: “Everywhere the masses of the people are the sources of all opportunities, the only forces capable of creating a real revival of life - everywhere they come into fermentation with a speed that has hardly been observed in past history." He finds everything truly majestic and beautiful in the popular, proletarian environment. “... For me, revolution,” Gorky wrote to S. A. Vengerov in 1908, “is as strictly legitimate and blissful a phenomenon of life as the spasms of a baby in the womb, and the Russian revolutionary ... is a phenomenon equal to which in spiritual beauty, the power of love for the world, I do not know" ** .
* (M. Gorky. Collection soch., vol. 29, p. 23.)
** (M. Gorky. Collection soch., vol. 29, p. 74.)
New realistic literature is recognized by Gorky primarily in its socially transformative function, as a powerful engine of social progress. He sees its purpose as fanning the sparks of the new into bright lights, preparing the working people for a revolutionary assault on the old world.
In the speeches of Lenin, Gorky, Vorovsky, Lunacharsky, the formation of new socialist art is interpreted as a manifestation of objective historical necessity. The proletarian liberation movement, according to Marxist-Leninist teaching, inevitably generates at its highest stage artistic creativity new type. Socialist realism arose precisely as an expression of the historically mature class and aesthetic needs of the proletariat, and was not the result of “instructions from above,” as aesthetic revisionists like to say, who attribute the origin of the method only to the 30s of the 20th century. Such theorists excommunicate Gorky from the new art, declaring him only a continuer of the traditions of the classics of critical realism.
In reality, socialist realism developed under the influence of certain historical circumstances, and was not a consequence of the strong-willed decision of an individual. It was formed long before its terminological designation was found in 1934, which only legitimized the existence of the method in the work of Soviet writers.
The concept of “socialist realism” was not developed immediately. Back in the 20s, in lively discussions on the pages of newspapers and magazines, there was a search for a definition that would reflect the ideological and aesthetic originality of the new art. Some (Gladkov, Libedinsky) proposed calling the method proletarian realism, others (Mayakovsky) - tendentious, and still others (A. N. Tolstoy) - monumental. Along with others, the term “socialist realism” was also used, which subsequently became widespread.
The definition of socialist realism was first formulated at the First Congress of Writers of the USSR in 1934 and has not yet lost its fundamental meaning: “Socialist realism, being the main method of Soviet fiction and literary criticism, requires the artist to provide a truthful, historically specific depiction of reality in its revolutionary development. At the same time, the truthfulness and historical specificity of the artistic depiction of reality must be combined with the tasks of ideological transformation and education of the working people in the spirit of socialism." It was subsequently noted that this method presupposes the writer's understanding of the main tasks facing the Soviet people; at this stage it is the construction of communism, the education of an active fighter for the new, a person of the future society.
Socialist realism is active by nature. Characterizing its features, M. A. Sholokhov stated in his speech when he was awarded the Nobel Prize: “His originality lies in the fact that he expresses a worldview that does not accept either contemplation or escapism from reality, calling for the struggle for the progress of mankind, giving the opportunity to comprehend goals close to millions of people, to illuminate the path of struggle for them.”
Socialist realism, imbued with Marxist-Leninist ideology, is party art. It openly defends the interests of the working class, of all the working masses. Communist Party membership is the source of his aesthetic strength. It provides deep penetration into social processes, into the thoughts and feelings of people, the most truthful and most objective disclosure of the essence of life.
The subjective aspirations of communist-minded writers correspond to the more objective logic of social development. The Marxist-Leninist worldview allows the socialist realist to illuminate, as if with an x-ray, life to its most hidden depths, to expose its hidden connections, to tear off the mask of false humanism from the “knights of profit,” to show the true moral nobility and greatness of the heroes of the proletarian and national liberation movement.
Writers of socialist realism illuminate the path of the struggle for the future in a fundamentally new way. They associate its onset not only with educational activities, not only with the moral renewal of society. They recognize the new era as a natural result of social progress, prepared during the revolutionary battles of the working class and its allies with reaction. If the artists of the 18th and 19th centuries, fighting for a life worthy of man, relied primarily on the power of the word, moral example (Diderot, Fielding, Balzac, Turgenev, L. Tolstoy, etc.), then Gorky, Mayakovsky, Serafimovich and other classics Soviet literature sees the decisive force of the historical process in the struggle of the masses. In this regard, the battle for the future unfolds in their works not only in the sphere of ideas, but also as a reflection of real strikes, battles on the barricades, just wars, etc.
A new look at society opened up for socialist realists the richest prospects for a realistic depiction of people of revolutionary action. These perspectives are revealed in their creativity in the practice of living revolutionary struggle, in appropriate circumstances. All this made it possible to draw the image of a positive hero historically concretely, artistically expressively, to show him as a full-blooded human personality.
The Marxist-Leninist worldview makes the writer visionary. It enables a talented artist to truthfully capture not only established, but also emerging phenomena of life, and to foresee their mass distribution in the future. With their ability to insightfully reveal the prospects of developing events, representatives of socialist realism are superior to critical realists, who, due to their historical limitations, did not always correctly determine the trend of social development and therefore, when embodying something new, often departed from the realistic principles of depiction. Suffice it to recall that I. A. Goncharov, having created multifaceted life-like images of Alexander Aduev, Oblomov, Raisky in his novels “Ordinary History”, “Oblomov”, “Break”, which deeply reflected the life of the nobility, at the same time was forced to limit himself a very schematic, one-sided, devoid of historical specificity depiction of Stolz and Tushin - representatives of a new, just emerging type of bourgeois businessmen, and when depicting the revolutionary Mark Volokhov, he fell into obvious caricature, distorting many of the features of the participants in the liberation movement. All this was connected primarily with the weakness of Goncharov’s worldview, which limited the method of critical realism in reflecting new, newly emerging phenomena of reality. This limitation in depicting revolutionary events and their participants also manifested itself in the works of I. S. Turgenev ("Fathers and Sons", "New"), L. N. Tolstoy ("Resurrection"), A. P. Chekhov ("The Bride" ) and other literary artists - up to A. I. Kuprin, I. A. Bunin, L. Andreev, who failed to recognize and, even more so, correctly reflect the liberation movement of the masses at the beginning of the 20th century.
Writers who mastered the method of socialist realism, for the first time in the history of world literature, were able to historically concretely show the ways of the people’s struggle for their liberation. Naturally, they relied both on the achievements of the theory of scientific socialism and on the experience of the mass movement, which gained enormous scope in Russia. Gorky, Serafimovich, Bedny, Andersen-Nexe, Barbusse did not declare, as in early socialist poetry, the ideas of revolutionary struggle; They artistically convincingly embodied the dynamics of society itself in their works, revealing the characters of the heroes in such a way that it became clear to the reader how participation in the struggle for socialism enriches a person’s personality, how its best qualities are revealed in revolutionary events, and how it grows spiritually. Typical in this regard are the fates of Nilovna and Pavel in Gorky's story "Mother", Marya in Serafimovich's story "Bombs", Pavel Korchagin in the novel "How the Steel Was Tempered" by N. Ostrovsky and others.
In the literature of socialist realism, the socio-aesthetic ideal received for the first time in the history of world art its most complete, and most importantly, embodiment exactly corresponding to life itself in the image of a positive hero. It is no coincidence that many artists of the past, not finding a hero corresponding to their ideals in modern reality, either turned to the historical past, clearly modernizing its representatives (Don Carlos and the Marquis Posa in Schiller’s “Don Carlos”, Derzhavin and Voinarovsky in the works of the same name by Ryleev, Taras Bulba from Gogol), or created idealized images of their contemporaries, devoid of everyday authenticity (Kostanzhoglo and Murazov in the second volume of Gogol’s “Dead Souls”).
Based on a method that reproduces life in its long-term development, artists for the first time in the history of world literature made the true hero of our time - a revolutionary worker who took the path of struggle for socialism - the bearer and exponent of their aesthetic ideal, while maintaining the historical specificity and life-like authenticity of the image. It is these features that explain the remarkable power of the impressive educational influence on readers of Davydov, Meresyev, Voropaev and many other heroes of Soviet literature.
Not limiting themselves to depicting the destinies of ordinary representatives of the people and their outstanding leaders, socialist realists deeply and comprehensively showed the masses as driving force history. Never before have crowd scenes occupied such an important and central place in works of a wide variety of genres, and most importantly, have not had such a direct and definite impact on the resolution of central conflicts as in the art of socialist realism. Indicative in this regard are “Iron Stream” by Serafimovich, “Good!” Mayakovsky, "Optimistic Tragedy" by Vishnevsky.
Having mastered a truly scientific approach to the phenomena of social life, taking the position of the revolutionary people and their vanguard - the Communist Nation, writers were able to correctly recognize and evaluate the most basic life conflicts in the past and present, and reflect them directly in the plots of their works. So, for example, if Russian writers - critical realists of the early 20th century - focused on depicting the clashes of “little people” - peasants, artisans, democratically minded intellectuals - with individual oppressors - kulaks, landowners, bourgeois entrepreneurs, then Gorky and Serafimovich, who at the same time published his works “Enemies”, “Summer”, “City in the Steppe”, revealed the main contradiction of the era - between the revolutionary proletariat and peasantry, on the one hand, and the autocratic bourgeois system and its defenders, on the other.
Socialist realism provides limitless possibilities for a sharp, irreconcilable, accusatory portrayal of both the obvious and hidden enemies of the people, and those deeply mistaken and mistaken people who act in their favor. This is confirmed primarily by the satirical images of the works of Gorky, Mayakovsky, Bedny, Ilf and Petrov, Marshak, Korneychuk and many other Soviet writers.
Even such a genre as the fable, which has centuries-old traditions, was revived and significantly updated by D. Bedny from the standpoint of socialist realism. This was reflected, in particular, in the strengthening of the political orientation and class intransigence in the poet’s works, written in tsarist times (“House”, “Clarinet and Horn”, “Shoe Shoes and Boots”, etc.). Noting the direct connection of his work with the fable work of one of the founders of critical realism in Russian literature, I.A. Krylov, D. Bedny rightfully asserted: “The cattle that he drove to watering, I sent to the knacker” (the poem “In Defense of the Fable” ").
However, even in those works that do not pay enough attention to the depiction of negative characters, the prospects for an intense and irreconcilable struggle against them and the conditions that give rise to them are clearly shown. Even when positive heroes are defeated in the fight against enemies, the artists of socialist realism, through the entire course of events, convince readers of the regularity and inevitability of the victory of the cause for which they fought. Suffice it to recall the endings of Fadeev's "Destruction" or Sholokhov's "Virgin Soil Upturned" imbued with the spirit of historical optimism.
Socialist art is deeply optimistic and life-affirming. It can vigilantly discern the new, progressive in our lives, talentedly and vividly show the beauty of the world in which we live, the greatness of the goals and ideals of a person in a new society. However, it should not ignore the shortcomings inherent in our reality. Criticism of them in works of art is useful and necessary; it helps Soviet people overcome these shortcomings.
Socialist realism combines a critical focus against everything alien to our system with the affirmation of its basic principles. This life-affirming character of literature is not declarative and has nothing to do with varnishing life. Optimistic pathos is due to a deep knowledge of the laws of historical development and the confidence, confirmed by the centuries-old evolution of mankind, that the truly progressive and democratic, in the end, always defeats the forces of reaction and despotism, no matter how strong they may be. This life-affirming character of socialist realism manifested itself with vividness even in such genres as tragedy and requiem, defining them innovative character(“Optimistic Tragedy” by Vishnevsky, “Death of the Squadron” by Korneychuk, “Requiem” by Rozhdestvensky, etc.).
The main task of Soviet literature is the direct depiction of new life, the concrete reproduction of everything that anticipates communist relations in work, in everyday life, in the minds of people. Hence the desire of artists to capture achievements in the construction of a classless society, to support everything advanced that is born in life.
IN modern criticism opinions are expressed that for a writer of socialist realism the material with which he deals is indifferent. What is important is only the look at what is depicted, its assessment from the standpoint of communist party affiliation. This concept even received an aphoristic formulation: “There is no small-mindedness, there is small-mindedness.” Of course, the greatness of our era can be captured in small things, but it is impossible to reveal it if the artist only walks along country roads and paths, deviating from the main paths of social development. The new is especially clearly manifested in large-scale conflicts that arise in the intense social struggle for the construction of communism.
In the outstanding works of Soviet literature - in "The Young Guard", "Virgin Soil Upturned", "Russian Forest" and others - the character of a real person is tested in the events of history. The hero undergoes a test of strength in them in the fire of war, in battles on the labor front, in battles in science.
Romance in socialist realism
The life-affirming pathos of the literature of socialist realism is nourished by the sublime, beautiful phenomena of reality itself, the deep conviction of writers in the final triumph of communism, no matter what difficulties may be encountered on the path to its achievement. Depicting the present, Soviet writers confidently look into tomorrow Soviet people. Their dream of the future is based on a sober study of the present and its development trends. It is the reflection of the heroic, sublime in the people’s struggle for a communist future that determines the essence of socialist romance. It has nothing to do with fruitless fantasizing and projecting. Its source is life itself in its continuous movement forward.
Romance as a desire for the sublime has traveled the entire long path of historical development of mankind, acquiring a new flavor in each era. Its content is connected with the best human impulses for freedom, love, friendship, and the struggle for the happiness of people. In an antagonistic class society, romance constantly came into irreconcilable conflict with the dominant feudal or bourgeois system. The private property regime stifled everything human and refuted beautiful and sublime dreams. Hence the collapse of illusions that is characteristic of the heroes of Shakespeare, Balzac, Pushkin and Flaubert. The classics of world literature impressively showed the clash of beautiful, romantically minded heroes with the hostile laws of life of feudal and bourgeois society.
In Soviet society, romance takes on a different character. People's utopian dreams of truly human relationships and happiness in the past are becoming a reality. The struggle of the working class and the peasantry, their heroic labor in our country created a reality unprecedented in history, which is the basis for the creation of works of art, realistic and romantic at the same time. Romance gives realistic literature the necessary elation, emotional expressiveness, saving the writer from objectivism and naturalistic description.
“Romanticism is the hormone that raises the artistic craft to the level of genuine art,” wrote L. M. Leonov. “And to that extent, any realism, since it does not want to degenerate into petty naturalism, must be romantic” *.
* (L. Leonov. Shakespeare Square. "Soviet Art", 1933, No. 5 (112), January 26.)
The romance of the worldview of Soviet writers grows out of living Soviet reality and “appears as a necessary and most important element of any great, genuine,” “winged realism” *. It reflects the essential aspects of the life of Soviet people, therefore it enters the new realistic art naturally and organically. The fusion of “existent” and “ought” in this literature takes on the character of a new pattern, since it is based on the reproduction of real processes of reality itself. This is where the synthetic nature of socialist realism comes from.
* (A. Fadeev. For thirty years, p. 354.)
The romance of life is embodied in art in different ways. The most adequate method for reflecting it was and remains romanticism. It is no coincidence that M. Gorky, and N. Tikhonov, and V. Vishnevsky and many other prose writers, poets, playwrights, in their desire to show the heroism of the struggle, turned to precisely this method in their early work and remained faithful to its best traditions even after mastering the socialist realism.
At the same time, the romance of life can be embodied by the methods of realistic art.
It is the different attitude towards the assimilation and creative development of the artistic experience of progressive romanticism and critical realism that Soviet artists gave theorists the basis to raise the question of two main stylistic trends in a single direction of modern literature of the peoples of the USSR. To one of them, developing and continuing the traditions of progressive romanticism, widely using it stylistic means and forms (in particular, conventional techniques of composition, symbols and allegories, synthetic genres, etc.), include the work of Vishnevsky and Svetlov. Fedin and many others belong to another, following the traditions of critical realism in stylistic techniques of objective reflection of reality. It should be emphasized that in terms of their worldview, which forms the basis of the artistic method, representatives of both stylistic movements do not differ from each other. Both A. Dovzhenko, who follows romantic traditions, and K. Fedin, who gravitates toward realistic ones, are characterized by a common approach to assessing life phenomena from the perspective of the Marxist-Leninist worldview.
The well-known stylistic unity of writers of realistic or romantic style movements is explained by the similarity of their artistic thinking, which is determined by the peculiarities of their worldview. Being Marxists in understanding society, its internal processes and development prospects, they reflect Soviet reality from various angles. Thus, artists of the romantic style movement have a special interest and special sensitivity to everything sublime, heroic, and unusual. They strive to find “the extraordinary in the ordinary” (K. Paustovsky), to embody in images the most striking, impressive character traits of Soviet people.
Reflecting very real phenomena of reality, they often free them from everything petty, everyday, from everything that interferes with the revelation of their romantic essence. In this regard, for example, many episodes of Fadeev’s “Young Guard” were written, depicting fights between Soviet patriots and fascist invaders. The author endowed Andrei Valko and Matvey Shulga with the traits of fairy-tale heroes - fearlessness, powerful strength, and a high sense of camaraderie. When describing their exploits, one involuntarily recalls the heroes of Gogol’s “Taras Bulba”. And Fadeev’s heroes themselves realize their closeness to the knights of the “Zaporozhye Sich”: “And you are a stalwart Cossack, Matviy, God give you strength!” - Valko said hoarsely and suddenly, leaning back with his whole body on his hands, he laughed as if they were both free. And Shulga echoed him with a hoarse, good-natured laugh: “And you are a good Sichev, Andriy, oh good!” In complete silence and darkness, their terrible heroic laughter shook the walls of the prison barracks."
Gogol’s romantic intonations can also be heard where Fadeev, through the mouth of Shulga, speaks about the Soviet people: “Is there anything more beautiful in the world than our people? How much labor and adversity he took on his shoulders for our state, for the people’s cause! During the civil war, He ate bread - he didn’t complain, during the reconstruction he stood in lines, wore tattered clothes, and did not exchange his Soviet birthright for haberdashery. And during this Patriotic War, with happiness, with pride in his heart, he bore his head to death.”
The desire to elevate the depicted phenomena above everyday life, to poeticize them constitutes characteristic features romantic style of "Young Guard" and create a bright, upbeat, optimistic mood in the reader.
The focus on reproducing the sublime and heroic inevitably led other Soviet artists to the romantic form of depiction. In this regard, Musa Jalil’s “Moabit Notebook” is significant, those pages that capture the experiences, impulses for struggle and freedom of the Soviet man who found himself in a fascist “stone bag.” The hero's inner world was such that it could be most fully revealed in a generalized symbolic plan with the exception of a number of social and everyday details. The material itself required precisely romantic means of embodiment.
Every writer is able, when reflecting various aspects of life, to turn to both romantic and realistic methods of its reproduction. The activation of one of the types of artistic thinking depends on the subject of the image, and on the goals and objectives that it sets for itself. Often the same artist uses romantic artistic techniques in some of his works, and realistic ones in others. M. Gorky, almost simultaneously with the romantic “Tales of Italy”, wrote in strictly realistic style"The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin" and autobiographical stories. The same features distinguish the works of A. Tvardovsky, A. Arbuzov and other Soviet writers.
In the process of typification, socialist realists often resort to conventional forms to reflect reality (symbols, grotesque, allegory, hyperbole, etc.). The conventional image in their work differs sharply from the conventional images of the modernists in its content: by revealing real life relationships, it contributes to their deep comprehension. Thus, in “The Satisfied,” Mayakovsky ridicules people who have reached the point where they are present at two meetings at once (“one half is here, the other is there”). The poet resorts to a grotesque image, which helps to more visibly and clearly capture a real life phenomenon with the aim of unconditionally condemning it.
In the work of formalists (futurists, dadaists, surrealists, etc.), the conventional image is deprived of content, sometimes turning into completely outright abstruseness, becoming a sign that does not reflect anything.
Formalistic conventions should not be confused with romantic ones. After all, romanticists of all trends and directions revealed the spiritual life of people, their aspiration for beauty. Therefore, the conventional image in their work, for all its abstractness, was filled with a certain meaning.
The use of conventional forms of artistic generalization cannot yet serve as a sufficient basis for classifying a writer’s work as romanticism or another non-realistic movement. It's all about the nature of the convention. It can be realistic, romantic, and formalistic. The entire work can be “woven” from conventional images and not lose its realistic character. These are many of the satirical works of V. Mayakovsky, D. Bedny, S. Mikhalkov and many other Soviet artists, which reveal very real life phenomena characteristic of a certain historical period.
Undoubtedly, in realistic works there are also romantic conventional images associated with the reflection of those spheres of reality that require precisely romantic forms for their expression. However, romantic convention plays a subordinate role in realism.
The variety of styles among artists of socialist realism, who gravitate toward romantic or realistic techniques and means of recreating life in art, refutes the slanderous fabrications of bourgeois critics about the unification, leveling, and monochromatic nature of the literature of the USSR and other socialist countries. It is enough to compare the poems of Simonov, Tikhonov, Mikhalkov and Isakovsky written on the topic of the struggle for peace to clearly see this.
Present great art arises only as a reflection of the truth of life in the light of an advanced social and aesthetic ideal. All the successes of socialist realists in our country and abroad are explained by their connection with the people, by the fact that they accepted not only with their minds, but also with their hearts the most advanced ideas of our time, which opened up new horizons for them in creative activity.
Socialist realism (lat. Socisalis - social, real is - real) is a unitary, pseudo-artistic direction and method of Soviet literature, formed under the influence of naturalism and the so-called proletarian literature. He was a leading figure in the arts from 1934 to 1980. Soviet criticism associated with him the highest achievements of art of the 20th century. The term "socialist realism" appeared in 1932. In the 1920s, lively discussions took place on the pages of periodicals about a definition that would reflect the ideological and aesthetic originality of the art of the socialist era. F. Gladkov, Yu. Lebedinsky proposed calling the new method “proletarian realism”, V. Mayakovsky - “tendentious”, I. Kulik - revolutionary socialist realism, A. Tolstoy - “monumental”, Nikolai Volnovoy - “revolutionary romanticism”, in Polishchuk - “constructive dynamism.” There were also such names as “revolutionary realism”, “romantic realism”, “communist realism”.
The participants in the discussion also argued sharply about whether there should be one method or two - socialist realism and red romanticism. The author of the term “socialist realism” was Stalin. The first chairman of the Organizing Committee of the USSR SP Gronsky recalled that in a conversation with Stalin he proposed calling the method of Soviet art “socialist realism.” The task of Soviet literature and its method were discussed at M. Gorky’s apartment; Stalin, Molotov and Voroshilov constantly participated in the discussions. Thus, socialist realism arose according to the Stalin-Gorky project. This term has a political meaning. By analogy, the names “capitalist” and “imperialist realism” arise.
The definition of the method was first formulated at the First Congress of USSR Writers in 1934. The charter of the Union of Soviet Writers noted that socialist realism is the main method of Soviet literature, it “requires from the writer a truthful, historically specific depiction of reality in its revolutionary development. At the same time, the truthfulness and historical specificity of the artistic depiction must be combined with the task of ideological reworking and education of the working people in the spirit of socialism." This definition characterizes the typological features of socialist realism and says that socialist realism is the main method of Soviet literature. This means there cannot be any other method. Socialist realism became the method of government. The words “demands from the writer” sound like a military order. They testify that the writer has the right to freedom - he is obliged to show life “in revolutionary development,” that is, not what is, but what should be. The purpose of his works is ideological and political - “the education of working people in the spirit of socialism.” The definition of socialist realism is political in nature, it is devoid of aesthetic content.
The ideology of socialist realism is Marxism, which is based on voluntarism; it is a defining feature of the worldview. Marx believed that the proletariat was capable of destroying the world of economic determinism and building a communist paradise on earth.
In the speeches and articles of party ideologists, the terms “ibisi of the literary front”, “ideological war”, “weapons” were often found. In the new art, methodology was most valued. The core of socialist realism is the communist party. Socialist realists assessed what was depicted from the standpoint of communist ideology, sang the praises of the communist party and its leaders, the socialist ideal. The foundation of the theory of socialist realism was V. I. Lenin’s article “Party organization and party literature.” A characteristic feature of socialist realism was the aestheticization of Soviet politics and the politicization of literature. The criterion for evaluating a work was not artistic quality, but ideological meaning. Often artistically helpless works were awarded with state awards. The Lenin Prize was awarded to L.I. Brezhnev's trilogy "Small Land", "Renaissance", "Virgin Land". Stalinists, Leninians, ideological myths about the friendship of peoples and internationalism brought to the point of absurdity appeared in literature.
Socialist realists depicted life as they wanted to see it according to the logic of Marxism. In their works, the city stood as the personification of harmony, and the village - disharmony and chaos. The personification of good was the Bolshevik, the personification of evil was the fist. Hardworking peasants were considered kulaks.
In the works of socialist realists, the interpretation of the land has changed. In the literature of past times, it was a symbol of harmony, the meaning of existence; for them, the earth is the personification of evil. The embodiment of private property instincts is often the mother. In the story by Peter Punch "Mom, die!" the ninety-five-year-old Gnat Hunger dies long and hard. But the hero can join the collective farm only after her death. Full of despair, he shouts “Mom, die!”
The positive heroes of the literature of socialist realism were workers, poor peasants, and representatives of the intelligentsia appeared as cruel, immoral, and treacherous.
“Genetically and typologically,” notes D. Nalivaiko, “socialist realism refers to the specific phenomena of the artistic process of the 20th century, formed under totalitarian regimes.” “This, according to D. Nalivaiko, “is a specific doctrine of literature and art, constructed by the Communist Party bureaucracy and biased artists, imposed from above state power and implemented under her leadership and constant supervision."
Soviet writers had every right to praise the Soviet way of life, but they had no right to the slightest criticism. Socialist realism was both a rod and a bludgeon. Artists who adhered to the norms of socialist realism became victims of repression and terror. Among them are Kulish, V. Polishchuk, Grigory Kosynka, Zerov, V. Bobinsky, O. Mandelstam, N. Gumilev, V. Stus. He crippled the creative destinies of such talented artists as P. Tychyna, V. Sosyura, Rylsky, A. Dovzhenko.
Socialist realism has essentially become socialist classicism with such dogma-norms as the already mentioned communist party spirit, nationalism, revolutionary romance, historical optimism, and revolutionary humanism. These categories are purely ideological, devoid of artistic content. Such norms were an instrument of crude and incompetent interference in the affairs of literature and art. The party bureaucracy used socialist realism as a weapon for the destruction of artistic values. Works by Nikolai Khvylovy, V. Vinnichenko, Yuri Klen, E. Pluzhnik, M. Orseth, B.-I. Antonich were banned for many decades. Belonging to the order of socialist realists became a matter of life and death. A. Sinyavsky, speaking at the Copenhagen meeting of cultural figures in 1985, said that “socialist realism is reminiscent of a heavy forged chest, which occupies the entire room allocated to literature for housing. It remained either to climb into the chest and live under its lid, or to face the chest , falling, from time to time squeezing sideways or crawling under it. This chest is still standing, but the walls of the room have been moved apart, or the chest has been moved to a more spacious and display room. “I’m tired of developing purposefully in a certain direction. Everyone is looking for workarounds. Someone ran into the forest and played on the lawn, fortunately it’s easier to do this from the large hall where there is a dead chest.”
The problems of the methodology of socialist realism became the object of heated debate in 1985-1990. Criticism of socialist realism was based on the following arguments: socialist realism limits and impoverishes the artist’s creative searches, it is a system of control over art, “evidence of the artist’s ideological charity.”
Socialist realism was considered the pinnacle of realism. It turned out that the socialist realist was higher than the realist of the 18th-19th centuries, higher than Shakespeare, Defoe, Diderot, Dostoevsky, Nechuy-Levitsky.
Of course, not all art of the 20th century is socialist realist. This was also felt by the theorists of socialist realism, who in recent decades proclaimed it an open aesthetic system. In fact, there were other directions in the literature of the 20th century. Socialist realism ceased to exist when the Soviet Union collapsed.
Only under conditions of independence did fiction get the opportunity to develop freely. The main evaluation criterion literary work became an aesthetic, artistic level, truthfulness, originality of the figurative reproduction of reality. Following the path of free development, Ukrainian literature is not regulated by party dogmas. Focusing on the best achievements of art, it takes its rightful place in the history of world literature.
Socialist realism(socialist realism) is an artistic method of literature and art (leading in the art of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries), which is an aesthetic expression of a socialist-conscious concept of the world and man, determined by the era of struggle for the establishment and creation of a socialist society. Image life ideals under socialism it determines both the content and the basic artistic and structural principles of art. Its emergence and development are associated with the spread of socialist ideas in different countries, with the development of the revolutionary labor movement.
Encyclopedic YouTube
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✪ Lecture "Socialist realism"
✪ The offensive of ideology: the formation of socialist realism as a state artistic method
✪ Boris Gasparov. Socialist realism as a moral problem
✪ Lecture by B. M. Gasparov “Andrei Platonov and socialist realism”
✪ A. Bobrikov "Socialist realism and the studio of military artists named after M.B. Grekov"
Subtitles
History of origin and development
Term "socialist realism" first proposed by the Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the USSR SP I. Gronsky in the Literary Newspaper on May 23, 1932. It arose in connection with the need to direct RAPP and the avant-garde to the artistic development of Soviet culture. Decisive in this regard was the recognition of the role classical traditions and understanding of new qualities of realism. In 1932-1933 Gronsky and head. The fiction sector of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, V. Kirpotin, vigorously promoted this term [ ] .
On the 1st All-Union Congress Soviet writers in 1934 Maxim Gorky stated:
“Socialist realism affirms being as an act, as creativity, the goal of which is the continuous development of man’s most valuable individual abilities for the sake of his victory over the forces of nature, for the sake of his health and longevity, for the sake of the great happiness of living on the earth, which he, in accordance with the continuous growth of his needs, wants treat the whole as a beautiful home for humanity united in one family.”
The state needed to approve this method as the main one for better control over creative individuals and better propaganda of its policies. In the previous period, the twenties, there were Soviet writers who sometimes took aggressive positions towards many outstanding writers. For example, RAPP, an organization of proletarian writers, was actively engaged in criticism of non-proletarian writers. RAPP consisted mainly of aspiring writers. During the period of the creation of modern industry (the years of industrialization), Soviet power needed art that would raise the people to “deeds of labor.” A rather motley picture was presented by fine arts 1920s Several groups emerged within it. The most significant group was the Association of Artists of the Revolution. They depicted today: the life of the Red Army soldiers, workers, peasants, leaders of the revolution and labor. They considered themselves the heirs of the “Itinerants”. They went to factories, mills, and Red Army barracks to directly observe the lives of their characters, to “sketch” it. It was they who became the main backbone of the artists of “socialist realism”. It was much harder for less traditional masters, in particular, members of the OST (Society of Easel Painters), which united young people who graduated from the first Soviet art university [ ] .
Gorky returned from exile in a solemn ceremony and headed the specially created Union of Writers of the USSR, which included mainly writers and poets of Soviet orientation.
Characteristic
Definition from the point of view of official ideology
For the first time, the official definition of socialist realism was given in the Charter of the USSR SP, adopted at the First Congress of the SP:
Socialist realism, being the main method of Soviet fiction and literary criticism, requires the artist to provide a truthful, historically specific depiction of reality in its revolutionary development. Moreover, the truthfulness and historical specificity of the artistic depiction of reality must be combined with the task of ideological remodeling and education in the spirit of socialism.
This definition became the starting point for all further interpretations until the 80s.
« Socialist realism is a deeply vital, scientific and most advanced artistic method that developed as a result of the successes of socialist construction and the education of Soviet people in the spirit of communism. The principles of socialist realism ... were a further development of Lenin’s teaching on the partisanship of literature.” (Great Soviet encyclopedia,)
Lenin expressed the idea that art should stand on the side of the proletariat in the following way:
“Art belongs to the people. The deepest springs of art can be found among the broad class of working people... Art must be based on their feelings, thoughts and demands and must grow with them.”
Principles of socialist realism
- Ideology. Show the peaceful life of the people, the search for ways to a new, better life, heroic deeds in order to achieve happy life for all people.
- Specificity. In depicting reality, show the process of historical development, which in turn must correspond to the materialistic understanding of history (in the process of changing the conditions of their existence, people change their consciousness and attitude towards the surrounding reality).
As the definition from the Soviet textbook stated, the method implied the use of the heritage of world realistic art, but not as a simple imitation of great examples, but with a creative approach. “The method of socialist realism predetermines the deep connection of works of art with modern reality, the active participation of art in socialist construction. The tasks of the method of socialist realism require from each artist a true understanding of the meaning of the events taking place in the country, the ability to evaluate the phenomena of social life in their development, in complex dialectical interaction.”
The method included the unity of realism and Soviet romance, combining the heroic and romantic with “a realistic statement of the true truth of the surrounding reality.” It was argued that in this way the humanism of “critical realism” was complemented by “socialist humanism.”
The state gave orders, sent people on creative trips, organized exhibitions - thus stimulating the development of the necessary layer of art. The idea of “social order” is part of socialist realism.
In literature
The writer, according to the well-known expression of Yu. K. Olesha, is an “engineer of human souls.” With his talent he must influence the reader as a propagandist. He educates the reader in the spirit of devotion to the party and supports it in the struggle for the victory of communism. Subjective actions and aspirations of the individual had to correspond to the objective course of history. Lenin wrote: “Literature must become party literature... Down with non-party writers. Down with the superhuman writers! The literary cause must become part of the general proletarian cause, the “cogs and wheels” of one single great social-democratic mechanism, set in motion by the entire conscious vanguard of the entire working class.”
A literary work in the genre of socialist realism should be built “on the idea of the inhumanity of any form of exploitation of man by man, expose the crimes of capitalism, inflaming the minds of readers and viewers with just anger, and inspire them to the revolutionary struggle for socialism.” [ ]
Maxim Gorky wrote the following about socialist realism:
“It is vitally and creatively necessary for our writers to take a point of view from the height of which - and only from its height - all the dirty crimes of capitalism, all the meanness of its bloody intentions are clearly visible, and all the greatness of the heroic work of the proletariat-dictator is visible.”
He also stated:
“...the writer must have a good knowledge of the history of the past and knowledge social phenomena modernity, in which he is called upon to simultaneously perform two roles: the role of midwife and gravedigger.”
Gorky believed that the main task of socialist realism is to cultivate a socialist, revolutionary view of the world, a corresponding sense of the world.
Belarusian Soviet writer Vasil Bykov called socialist realism the most advanced and proven method
So what can we, writers, masters of words, humanists, who have chosen the most advanced and proven method of socialist realism as the method of their creativity?
In the USSR, such foreign authors as Henri Barbusse, Louis Aragon, Martin Andersen-Nexe, Bertolt Brecht, Johannes Becher, Anna Seghers, Maria Puymanova, Pablo Neruda, Jorge Amado and others were also classified as socialist realists.
Criticism
Andrei Sinyavsky in his essay “What is socialist realism”, having analyzed the ideology and history of the development of socialist realism, as well as the features of its typical works in literature, concluded that this style is actually not related to “real” realism, but is Soviet a variant of classicism with admixtures of romanticism. Also in this work, he believed that due to the erroneous orientation of Soviet artists towards realistic works of the XIX centuries (especially critical realism), deeply alien to the classicistic nature of socialist realism - and, in his opinion, due to the unacceptable and curious synthesis of classicism and realism in one work - the creation of outstanding works of art in this style is unthinkable.
It was a creative method used in art and literature. This method was considered an aesthetic expression of a certain concept. This concept was associated with the period of struggle to build a socialist society.
This creative method was considered the main artistic direction in the USSR. Realism in Russia proclaimed a truthful reflection of reality against the background of its revolutionary development.
M. Gorky is considered the founder of the method in the literature. It was he who, in 1934, at the First Congress of Writers of the USSR, defined socialist realism as a form that affirms existence as action and creativity, the goal of which is the continuous development of the most valuable abilities of the individual to ensure his victory over natural forces for the sake of human longevity and health.
Realism, the philosophy of which is reflected in Soviet literature, was built in accordance with certain ideological principles. According to the concept, the cultural figure had to follow a peremptory program. Socialist realism was based on the glorification of the Soviet system, labor enthusiasm, as well as the revolutionary confrontation between the people and the leaders.
This creative method was prescribed to all cultural figures in every field of art. This put creativity within a fairly strict framework.
However, some artists of the USSR created original and striking works that had universal significance. Only recently has the merit of a number of socialist realist artists been recognized (Plastov, for example, who painted scenes from village life).
Literature at that time was an instrument of party ideology. The writer himself was considered as an “engineer of human souls.” With the help of his talent, he had to influence the reader and be a propagandist of ideas. The main task of the writer was to educate the reader in the spirit of the Party and support with him the struggle to build communism. Socialist realism brought the subjective aspirations and actions of the personalities of the heroes of all works into line with the objective ones historical events.
At the center of any work there had to be only a positive hero. He was an ideal communist, an example for everything. In addition, the hero was a progressive person, human doubts were alien to him.
Speaking about the fact that art should be owned by the people, that artistic work should be based on the feelings, demands and thoughts of the masses, Lenin specified that literature should be party literature. Lenin believed that this direction of art is an element of the general proletarian cause, a detail of one great mechanism.
Gorky argued that the main task of socialist realism is to cultivate a revolutionary view of what is happening, an appropriate perception of the world.
To ensure strict adherence to the method of creating paintings, writing prose and poetry, etc., it was necessary to subordinate the exposure of capitalist crimes. Moreover, each work had to praise socialism, inspiring viewers and readers to the revolutionary struggle.
The method of socialist realism covered absolutely all areas of art: architecture and music, sculpture and painting, cinema and literature, drama. This method asserted a number of principles.
The first principle - nationality - was manifested in the fact that the heroes in the works had to be from the people. First of all, these are workers and peasants.
The works had to contain descriptions of heroic deeds, revolutionary struggle, and the construction of a bright future.
Another principle was specificity. It was expressed in the fact that reality was a process of historical development that corresponded to the doctrine of materialism.
