The Flaming Sunflower: The Soviet Union and Sean O’casey’s Post-Realism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Cannon Harris
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
Performance History ◽  
Proletarian Literature ◽  
Sean O'casey ◽  
Soviet Culture ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance

Sean O’Casey came to see the Soviet Union as a market for the kind of ideologically-committed and antirealist drama that neither the Abbey Theatre’s directors nor London’s commercial producers wanted. Many of the plays O’Casey wrote after his move to England in 1928 become legible only in the context of the history charted during this book’s first four chapters, the Stalinised British left organizations with which O’Casey worked, and the genre of socialist realism. Investigating the genesis and performance history of O’Casey’s 1939 Communist play The Star Turns Red, this chapter shows how O’Casey’s post-realist aesthetic derives from the literary tradition of queer socialism, which reached him through Shelley and Larkin. Analyzing O’Casey’s nondramatic writing about and for the Soviet Union as well as his American supporters’ insistence that he remained artistically independent of Soviet ideologies about literature, this chapter shows that O’Casey’s ambivalence about British left culture masks an unbounded admiration of the kind of proletarian literature which O’Casey believed – thanks to his limited and misleading contact with it – was represented by socialist realism. O’Casey was also strongly drawn to the heroic and heterosexual masculinity cultivated by official Soviet culture.

Black, White, and Red

Red Strains ◽  
2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna Bullivant
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
South American ◽  
Performance History ◽  
British Guiana ◽  
Cultural Engagement ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Third World

The opera The Sugar Reapers (1962–5), by Alan Bush (1900–95), is doubly outside the communist bloc: the work of an English communist, set in the remote South American colony of British Guiana. Yet far from being an isolated curiosity, it addresses crucial aesthetic issues in post-war communism. As an enthusiast for the call for nationalist socialist realism that emanated from the Soviet Union in 1948, Bush faced particular difficulties in composing a work for British Guiana. What did national music mean in the context of an ethnically and culturally diverse population? And how was the danger of exoticism to be avoided? Tracing Bush's use of Guianese music, this chapter reveals a work indicative of the paradoxes of socialist realism, and creative in navigating these paradoxes. The work's political context and performance history are addressed as starting points for further investigation of communist cultural engagement with the Third World.

Exporting Soviet Culture: The Case of Agitprop Theater

Slavic Review ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 324-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn Mally
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
Popular Front ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Soviet Culture ◽  
Cultural Policies ◽  
New Methods ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Theatrical Performance ◽  
Global Influence

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.

Let's Perform a Miracle: The Soviet Yiddish State Theater in the 1920s

Slavic Review ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 372-397
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Veidlinger
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
The State ◽  
World War ◽  
Soviet Culture ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of

The history of the Soviet Yiddish State Theater (Gosudarstvennyi evreiskii teatr, or Goset) provides an illuminating glimpse into the life of Jewish entertainers and the position of Yiddish culture in the Soviet Union during the 1920s. While Solomon Mikhoels, the theater's star actor and director from 1929 until 1949, is well known for his role in chairing the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee during World War II, and for becoming the first victim of Stalin's anti-Semitic purges with his 1948 execution, little research has been conducted on the theater to which he dedicated his life. Art and theater historians have evaluated the theater's aesthetic approach to selected productions, and Mikhoels's contemporaries have provided anecdotal glimpses into that artist's life by writing biographies of him, but there has not yet been an attempt to assess the theater's relationship to the state during its heyday or to place the theater within the context of Soviet culture of the 1920s.

scholarly journals THE CULTURAL COMPONENT OF DIPLOMATIC RECEPTIONS IN THE USSR (1941–1945)

10.23856/4223 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 174-180
Author(s):  
Oksana Zakharova
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Soviet Culture ◽  
Charles De Gaulle ◽  
Communicative Functions ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cultural Component ◽  
Concert Programs

An important component of the foreign policy activity of state, public and political figures is participation in official government receptions that have informative and communicative functions. The repertoire policy of concert programs of diplomatic receptions built in such a way not only to inform about state priorities in the field of culture, but also to create a special socio-cultural environment conducive to constructive communication. The researcher analyzed the content of concert programs of government receptions, which organized during the visits to the Soviet Union by W. Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, I.B. Tito. The researcher describes a festive reception at the Reception House of the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs on Spiridonovka in Moscow on November 7, 1943, which organized in honor of the anniversary of the October Revolution, with the participation of the diplomatic corps, political and military elite, literary and art workers. Studying the Soviet diplomatic protocol during this period expands our knowledge not only in the field of the history of diplomatic relations, but also allows us to judge the peculiarities of the development of Soviet culture, its dependence on the tastes of the leaders and party ideology. The materials of the Foreign Policy Archive of the Russian Federation (Fund 057 – “Protocol Department”) used as sources.

scholarly journals Stalinizmas ir etnokultūros institucionalizavimas. Pirmoji Dainų šventė sovietinėje Lietuvoje 1946 m.

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019/1 ◽  
pp. 127-144
Author(s):  
Vladas Sirutavičius
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Committee ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Folk Culture ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
Soviet Culture ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government ◽  
Soviet Ideology

decided to re-establish the tradition of song festivals and organize the first such festival in 1946; and to what extent the implementation of the said idea was successful. Analysis of the history of the first Soviet song festival and circumstances surrounding the preparation for the event is based on the little known or practically unknown documents kept in the archives of Lithuania and the Russian Federation. The government of Lithuania viewed the organization of the “first Soviet song festival” as a possibility to demonstrate its concern with Lithuanian folk culture, its development, and promotion. This kind of policy was intended to strengthen the legitimacy of the Soviet government and make it seem more “Lithuanian”. The fact that Lithuanian folk culture helped spread the new Soviet ideology also cannot be ignored. The song festival was not only amply decorated with Soviet symbols, attempts were made to couple the attributes of the Soviet culture with the values of folk culture. On the other hand, organizing the festival the leadership of Soviet Lithuania wanted to show that the Soviet political regime can be in “harmony” with Lithuanian ethno-culture and the new government was a natural successor of former ethnic traditions. However, alone, without the approval of the Lithuanian Bureau of the Central Committee of the Soviet Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the support from Moscow, the government of Lithuania was unable to organize the festival. This suggests that the leadership of the Soviet Union was rather tolerant to the manifestations of “national Communism” not only in the countries of Central Europe that fell under Moscow’s influence but also in Lithuanian SSR. Besides, the decision to organize the festival in Vilnius was not a random one. Crowds of singers that came to the city from all around Lithuania changed its national composition – Vilnius for once became more Lithuanian. This not only demonstrated the government’s aspiration to show off its “Lithuanian” nature but also its ambition to make Vilnius the centre of Lithuanian (Soviet) culture. Finally, the government of LSSR was satisfied with the organization and course of the festival and believed that it managed to achieve its goals and objectives. Probably the success of the first Soviet song festival resulted in them being organized periodically.

History of Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology in Europe

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stiliani "Ani" Chroni ◽  
Frank Abrahamsen
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Sport Psychology ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Exercise Psychology ◽  
Performance Psychology ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Sport And Exercise ◽  
The 1960S

The evolution in sport, exercise, and performance psychology in Europe goes back to the 1800s and spread from the east (Germany and Russia) to the west of the continent (France). Modern European sport psychology theorizing started with Wilhelm Wundt, who studied reaction times and mental processes in 1879, and Philippe Tissié, who wrote about psychological changes during cycling in 1894. However, Pierre de Coubertin was the one to put forward the first definition and promotion of sport psychology as a field of science. From there on, and despite obstacles and delays due to two world wars in Europe, sport psychology accelerated and caught up with North America. Looking back to the history of our disciplines, while sport, exercise, and performance psychology evolved and developed as distinct disciplines in Europe, sport and exercise psychology research appear to be stronger than performance psychology. The research advancements in sport and exercise psychology led to the establishment of the European sport psychology organization (FEPSAC) in the 1960s, as researchers needed an umbrella establishment that would accept the cultural and linguistic borders within the continent. From there on, education programs developed throughout Europe, and a cross-continent program of study with the collaboration of 12 academic institutions and the support of the European Commission was launched in the late 1990s. Applied sport psychology was practiced in the Soviet Union aiming to enhance the performance of their teams in the 1952 Olympics. Unfortunately, in many countries across Europe, research and practice are not comprehensively integrated to enhance sports and sportspersons, and while applied practice has room to grow, it also has challenges to tackle.

The Role of the Mongolian People’s Republic in the Korean War

2018 ◽  
pp. 97-130
Author(s):  
Denzenlkham Ulambayar
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Korean War ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
History Of

Since the 1990s, when previously classified and top secret Russian archival documents on the Korean War became open and accessible, it has become clear for post-communist countries that Kim Il Sung, Stalin and Mao Zedong were the primary organizers of the war. It is now equally certain that tensions arising from Soviet and American struggle generated the origins of the Korean War, namely the Soviet Union’s occupation of the northern half of the Korean peninsula and the United States’ occupation of the southern half to the 38th parallel after 1945 as well as the emerging bipolar world order of international relations and Cold War. Newly available Russian archival documents produced much in the way of new energies and opportunities for international study and research into the Korean War.2 However, within this research few documents connected to Mongolia have so far been found, and little specific research has yet been done regarding why and how Mongolia participated in the Korean War. At the same time, it is becoming today more evident that both Soviet guidance and U.S. information reports (evaluated and unevaluated) regarding Mongolia were far different from the situation and developments of that period. New examples of this tendency are documents declassified in the early 2000s and released publicly from the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in December 2016 which contain inaccurate information. The original, uncorrupted sources about why, how and to what degree the Mongolian People’s Republic (MPR) became a participant in the Korean War are in fact in documents held within the Mongolian Central Archives of Foreign Affairs. These archives contain multiple documents in relation to North Korea. Prior to the 1990s Mongolian scholars Dr. B. Lkhamsuren,3 Dr. B. Ligden,4 Dr. Sh. Sandag,5 junior scholar J. Sukhee,6 and A. A. Osipov7 mention briefly in their writings the history of relations between the MPR and the DPRK during the Korean War. Since the 1990s the Korean War has also briefly been touched upon in the writings of B. Lkhamsuren,8 D. Ulambayar (the author of this paper),9 Ts. Batbayar,10 J. Battur,11 K. Demberel,12 Balảzs Szalontai,13 Sergey Radchenko14 and Li Narangoa.15 There have also been significant collections of documents about the two countries and a collection of memoirs published in 200716 and 2008.17 The author intends within this paper to discuss particularly about why, how and to what degree Mongolia participated in the Korean War, the rumors and realities of the war and its consequences for the MPR’s membership in the United Nations. The MPR was the second socialist country following the Soviet Union (the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics) to recognize the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) and establish diplomatic ties. That was part of the initial stage of socialist system formation comprising the Soviet Union, nations in Eastern Europe, the MPR, the PRC (People’s Republic of China) and the DPRK. Accordingly between the MPR and the DPRK fraternal friendship and a framework of cooperation based on the principles of proletarian and socialist internationalism had been developed.18 In light of and as part of this framework, The Korean War has left its deep traces in the history of the MPR’s external diplomatic environment and state sovereignty

Translation and Transformation: English-Language Children's Literature in (Soviet) Russian Guise

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Inggs
Keyword(s):  
Children's Literature ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
English Language ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
The Political ◽  
Philosophy Of Action ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Free Translation ◽  
Soviet Russia

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.

Displace of Documentary Heritage from the Soviet Union to Poland during the Third Decade of the XXth Century

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 127-137
Author(s):  
Tatsiana Hiarnovich
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Agreements ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
Actual Process ◽  
Xxth Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Selection Of

The paper explores the displace of Polish archives from the Soviet Union that was performed in 1920s according to the Riga Peace Treaty of 1921 and other international agreements. The aim of the research is to reconstruct the process of displace, based on the archival sources and literature. The object of the research is those documents that were preserved in the archives of Belarus and together with archives from other republics were displaced to Poland. The exploration leads to clarification of the selection of document fonds to be displaced, the actual process of movement and the explanation of the role that the archivists of Belarus performed in the history of cultural relationships between Poland and the Soviet Union. The articles of the Treaty of Riga had been formulated without taking into account the indivisibility of archive fonds that is one of the most important principles of restitution, which caused the failure of the treaty by the Soviet part.

A Sacred Space Is Never Empty

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Smolkin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Sacred Space ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Soviet Leadership ◽  
Sacred Spaces ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Ideology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Soviet Experiment

When the Bolsheviks set out to build a new world in the wake of the Russian Revolution, they expected religion to die off. Soviet power used a variety of tools—from education to propaganda to terror—to turn its vision of a Communist world without religion into reality. Yet even with its monopoly on ideology and power, the Soviet Communist Party never succeeded in overcoming religion and creating an atheist society. This book presents the first history of Soviet atheism from the 1917 revolution to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The book argues that to understand the Soviet experiment, we must make sense of Soviet atheism. It shows how atheism was reimagined as an alternative cosmology with its own set of positive beliefs, practices, and spiritual commitments. Through its engagements with religion, the Soviet leadership realized that removing religion from the “sacred spaces” of Soviet life was not enough. Then, in the final years of the Soviet experiment, Mikhail Gorbachev—in a stunning and unexpected reversal—abandoned atheism and reintroduced religion into Soviet public life. The book explores the meaning of atheism for religious life, for Communist ideology, and for Soviet politics.

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