scholarly journals SPECIFICITY AND FEATURES OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF AESTHETICS IN THE UKRAINIAN SOVIET PHILOSOPHY IN THE 50-60s OF THE XX CENTURY

2021 ◽  
pp. 24-28
Author(s):  
V. E. Turenko ◽  
N. V. Yarmolitska

The article highlights the specificity of research in the field of aesthetics in the context of the development of Soviet philosophy in Ukraine in the 50-60s. XX century. There are three main vectors of scientific work: ideological works, original aesthetic developments and historical and aesthetic research. It is revealed that ideological aesthetic works were based on the concept of "positive aesthetics" by A. Lunacharsky, which contributed to the development of the concept of socialist realism, nationality of art by Ukrainian Soviet thinkers, as well as criticism of Western aesthetics and the approval of "Soviet aesthetics". It is shown that, unlike specifically ideological works, the original aesthetic developments were aimed not at substantiating certain provisions of Marxist-Leninist philosophy, but, as far as possible, creating new concepts and ideas in this branch of philosophical knowledge. It was revealed that in the context of historical and aesthetic research, in contrast to Russian researchers, Ukrainian scientists focused mainly on the development of the national tradition. It is proved that during the period under study, aesthetic problems, along with logic, methodology of science, philosophical problems of natural science, were one of the leading in Soviet Ukraine, thereby being one of its centers throughout the Soviet Union.

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Inggs

This article investigates the perceived image of English-language children's literature in Soviet Russia. Framed by Even-Zohar's polysystem theory and Bourdieu's philosophy of action, the discussion takes into account the ideological constraints of the practice of translation and the manipulation of texts. Several factors involved in creating the perceived character of a body of literature are identified, such as the requirements of socialist realism, publishing practices in the Soviet Union, the tradition of free translation and accessibility in the translation of children's literature. This study explores these factors and, with reference to selected examples, illustrates how the political and sociological climate of translation in the Soviet Union influenced the translation practices and the field of translated children's literature, creating a particular image of English-language children's literature in (Soviet) Russia.


Author(s):  
William C. Brumfield

This article examines the development of retrospective styles in Soviet architecture during the Stalin era, from the 1930s to the early 1950s. This highly visible manifestation of communist visual culture is usually interpreted as a reaction to the austere modernism of 1920s Soviet avant-garde architecture represented by the constructivist movement. The project locates the origins of Stalin-era proclamatory, retrospective style in prerevolutionary neoclassical revival architecture. Although functioning in a capitalist market, that neoclassical reaction was supported by prominent critics who were suspicious of Russia’s nascent bourgeoisie and felt that neoclassical or neo-Renaissance architecture could echo the glory of imperial Russia. These critics left Russia after the Bolshevik Revolution, but prominent architects of the neoclassicist revival remained in the Soviet Union. Together with the Academy of Architecture (founded 1933), these architects played a critical role in reviving classicist monumentalism—designated “socialist realism”—as the proclamatory style for the centralized, neoimperial statist system of the Stalin era. Despite different ideological contexts (prerevolutionary and Stalinist), retrospective styles were promulgated as models for significant architectural projects. The article concludes with comments on the post-Stalinist—and post-Soviet—alternation of modernist and retrospective architectural styles.


Slavic Review ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 324-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn Mally

In this article Lynn Mally examines the efforts of a Comintern affiliate called MORT (Mezhdunarodnoe ob“edinenie revoliutsionnykh teatrov) to export models of Soviet theatrical performance outside the Soviet Union. Beginning with the first Five-Year Plan, MORT was initially very successful in promoting Soviet agitprop techniques abroad. But once agitprop methods fell into disgrace in the Soviet Union, MORT abruptly changed its tactics. It suddenly encouraged leftist theater groups to move toward the new methods of socialist realism. Nonetheless, many leftist theater circles continued to produce agitprop works, as shown by performances at the Moscow Olympiad for Revolutionary Theater in 1933. The unusual tenacity of this theatrical form offers an opportunity to question the global influence of the Soviet cultural policies promoted by the Comintern. From 1932 until 1935, many foreign theater groups ignored MORT's cultural directives. Once the Popular Front began, national communist parties saw artistic work as an important tool for building alliances outside the working class. This decisive shift in political strategy finally undermined the ethos and methods of agitprop theater.


2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 135-149
Author(s):  
Wojciech Łysek

The article discusses the life and work of the outstanding Sovietologist Richard Pipes, who was born in a Polonized Jewish family in Polish Cieszyn. After an adventurous trip to the United States in 1939 and 1940, he graduated in history from Harvard University and devoted himself to scientific work. For the next half a century, Pipes dealt with the historical and contemporary aspects of Russia. In his numerous publications, including more than 20 monographs, he emphasised that the Soviet Union continued rather than broke with the political practice of tsarist Russia. In his professional work, he thus contested views prevailing among American researchers and society. From the 1960s, Pipes was involved in political activities. He was sceptical about détente, advocating more decisive actions towards the Soviet Union. Between 1981 and 1983, he was the director of the Department of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the National Security Council in the administration of President Ronald Reagan. Although retiring in 1996, he did not give up his scientific activity. Pipes died on 17 May 2018; according to his last will, his private book collection of 3,500 volumes has been donated to the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences.


1970 ◽  
pp. 81-91
Author(s):  
HANNA GRZESZCZUK-BRENDEL

A – department store commonly referred to as “Okrąglak” (“The Rotunda”) in Poznań and the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, both completed in 1955, represent features of two opposing styles. This leads to further reflections on modernism and socialist realism as demonstrated by the – two buildings. The modern features of the tower of the Palace of Culture and Science have been outshined with the national form and communist contents clearly reflecting Poland’s subordination to the Soviet Union. References to the pattern, the Palace of the Soviets, defined the top-down accepted model of progress. The department store (“Okrąglak”), designed in 1948, was also meant to demonstrate modernity of commerce in a communist country. However, its form designed by Marek Leykam represents a more universal concept of progress free from any designations.


Author(s):  
Zanda Gūtmane

The paper is devoted to a parallel description of the literary processes in the Soviet Union and Soviet Latvia during Nikita Khrushchev’ reign, also known as the period of political thaw or the liberalisation of the communist regime (1953–1964). The main object of the research is the literary magazine Inostrannaja literatura (Иностранная литература), issued in the Soviet Union since 1955, dedicated to foreign literature and its translations; the principles of creating its content and structure during the political thaw period. The aim of the research: with concrete examples, to show the role of this legendary Russian literary periodical in the Iron Curtain period, expansion of freedom of thought, decanonization of socialist realism dogmas in general in the USSR, and also in the Latvian SSR. The methodological basis of the research consists of a comparative literature approach and a new historicism position that the literary text is important in studying different lines of history. The analysis of the publications clearly shows the replacement of the so-called periods of thaw and freezing. The article proves that the appearance of translations, reviews, previews, and research articles of foreign literature in this journal is closely connected with various political peripeteia of the USSR. In Latvia, there is a great resonance of Inostrannaja literatura, and it had an eventual influence on overcoming the dogmas of socialist realism in Latvian literature. The publications about the journal in Latvian literary editions and the study of the reception of one text example, a comparison of various editions of the writer Ēvalds Vilks’s (1923–1976) story “Twelve Kilometers”, prove it.


Author(s):  
Simon Wickhamsmith

The chapter gives an account of the trials in October 1937 of the leading writers S. Buyannameh and M. Yadamsüren and shows the effect of the Soviet-style purges on literature at the time. Accusations of spying for the Japanese and of other counterrevolutionary activity meant that very few intellectuals and creative artists were untouched by the trials. Those who were – including writers such as D. Sengee, who was openly supportive of the Party’s trajectory – benefited by replacing those who were executed as well as those who had been removed from their positions. Among some younger writers, an interest in Socialist Realism resulted in an increase in texts about industrialization, the Young Pioneers, the ‘friendship’ between Mongolia and the Soviet Union, and the growing cult of personality surrounding Choibalsan.


Author(s):  
Simon Wickhamsmith

The Great Repression left Mongolian letters without many of its leading voices, but this also enabled the Party to revive literature in a way more favorable to its ideological trajectory. The first Congress of Mongolian Writers, held in the spring of 1948, was the culmination of a decade’s political development in which writers were encouraged to write about the benefit of labor (D. Sengee’s ‘The Shock Workers’ [Udarnik, 1941] and Ts. Damdinsüren’s ‘How Soli Changed’ [Soli solison ni, 1945]) and so develop a Mongolian Socialist Realism. Through a closer connection with Soviet policy, helped by Mongolia’s moral and practical support of the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War, the Writers’ Congress helped to define the ideological basis for Mongolian literature for the next three decades.


Author(s):  
Paul Stangl

For more than a century before the war, debate over the “housing issue” engaged politicians and reformers in Berlin, although Communists refused to participate, seeking revolution rather than reform. After World War II, newly empowered Communists had no choice but to address the housing crisis. Initially they joined others in supporting modernist planning efforts, with a first “residential cell” that would be constructed along Frankfurter Allee in Friedrichshain. The introduction of socialist realism necessitated a halt in construction as new plans for a monumental Stalinallee were developed. This formed the centerpiece of the state building program until the 1953 Uprising, which along with a shift to industrialized construction in the Soviet Union would result in a search for a new “socialist architecture.” As a result, the section of the street between Straussbergerplatz and Alexanderplatz would be built combining some socialist-realist tenets with modernism, while highlighting technological power.


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-201
Author(s):  
Min-Kyung Yoon

Abstract In North Korean paintings, history is mobilized to legitimate the North Korean system and its leaders. Utilizing the mode of socialist realism, North Korean paintings give visual form to a socialist world, a utopian vision full of unremitting heroism, harvest, and happiness centered on the ruling Kim family. In these paintings, positive heroes such as laborers, workers, farmers, and children are depicted in historically correct scenes that always propel the North Korean revolution forward. After adopting socialist realism from the Soviet Union, North Korea localized this creative method to meet its specific political needs through medium and content. Through this process, socialist realism came to reflect the ideals of juche, the state ideology of North Korea. Informed by North Korean theoretical writings on art and art reviews, this article examines how history is visually mobilized in three paintings created in 1985 and 2000 through the language of juche realism.


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