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1 results

  • 1.8 - Socialist Realism

  • from History 1 - Movements
  • Edited by Simon Franklin, University of Cambridge, Rebecca Reich, University of Cambridge, Emma Widdis, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The New Cambridge History of Russian Literature
    Published online:
    31 December 2024
    Print publication:
    12 December 2024, pp 147-163

  • Summary

    Socialist Realism was the (only) art officially sponsored in the Soviet Union. This chapter traces how it emerged, developed and faded away along with the Soviet regime. Socialist Realism was specific and unique, as never before had an artistic movement became a focus of state and bureaucratic activity. The political servility, explicit propagandistic aims and aesthetic inferiority of this populist art gave Socialist Realism both originality and novelty. This chapter analyses the main functions of Socialist Realism, from the normalisation and de-realisation of Soviet reality and its transformation into socialism, to the legitimisation of the regime and the wider aims of historisation, mobilisation and interiorisation. It also explores the movement’s institutional dimensions and characteristic features, which included a propensity for superficial verisimilitude, a craving for melodrama, an evenness of style, and linguistic and structural conventionality.