Message about socialist realism in art. Painting of the Soviet era

What is social realism in the culture of the USSR

This concept came into circulation at the suggestion of Gorky at the First Congress of Writers in 1934, and then was reflected in the charter of the joint venture. At first, the definition was vague and eloquent, it spoke of ideological education in accordance with the spirit of socialism, of reflecting life in a revolutionary progressive movement. This direction is a revolutionary movement into the future, more acceptable to literature, since the development of the plot and the change in the character of the characters are possible there. But the definition has spread to the whole culture, including the fine arts.

Socialist realism meant the reorganization of the world in accordance with communist ideals. Its main features were:

• pathos,
• life-affirming start
• nationality,
• internationalism,
• the inseparability of society and the fate of the individual.

Socialist realism existed in the painting of the 20th century until the mid-80s.

The first paintings of socialist realism

• gigantism,
• pathos of volumes and scales.

Although this does not have direct formulations, it is obvious in the subject matter, in the very manner of writing, the canvas becomes denser and heavier. The former ones especially showed themselves in painting industrial landscapes. These are the motives of Lentulov in "The Cracking of an Oil Refinery" in a cycle about Kerch workers. The materiality characteristic of such a manner of writing came in handy.

1. monumentalism

He shows ordinary people, moments of private life, are as follows - "Again the deuce" and "Arrived for the holidays." Pimenov responds to this topic. Laktionov's "Letter from the Front" is very sentimental and instructive. It can be described as a socialist realist philistine style.

This period is like swan song social realism in painting, until the collapse of the USSR, it will still exist, but it will be at the end of its capabilities. During the thaw years, new styles and other masters will appear. The creations of the underground will make you take a different look at the world of Soviet art.

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“Socialist realism affirms being as an act, as creativity, the goal of which is the continuous development of the most valuable individual abilities of a person for the sake of his victory over the forces of nature, for the sake of his health and longevity, for the sake of great happiness to live on the earth, which he, in accordance with the continuous growth of his needs, wants to process everything, as a wonderful dwelling of mankind, united in one family ”(M. Gorky).

This characteristic of the method was given by M. Gorky at the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934. And the term “socialist realism” itself was proposed by the journalist and literary critic I. Gronsky in 1932. But the idea of ​​the new method belongs to A.V. Lunacharsky, revolutionary and Soviet statesman.
A perfectly justified question: why was a new method (and a new term) needed if realism already existed in art? And how did socialist realism differ from just realism?

On the need for socialist realism

The new method was needed in a country that was building a new socialist society.

P. Konchalovsky "From the mowing" (1948)
First, it was necessary to control creative process creative personalities, i.e. now the task of art was to promote the policy of the state - there were still enough of those artists who sometimes took an aggressive position in relation to what was happening in the country.

P. Kotov "Worker"
Secondly, these were the years of industrialization, and the Soviet government needed an art that would raise the people to "labor exploits."

M. Gorky (Alexey Maksimovich Peshkov)
Having returned from emigration, M. Gorky headed the Union of Writers of the USSR, created in 1934, which included mainly writers and poets of a Soviet orientation.
The method of socialist realism demanded from the artist a truthful, historically concrete depiction of reality in its revolutionary development. Moreover, the truthfulness and historical concreteness of the artistic depiction of reality must be combined with the task of ideological reworking and education in the spirit of socialism. This setting for cultural figures in the USSR operated until the 1980s.

Principles of socialist realism

The new method did not deny the heritage of world realistic art, but predetermined the deep connection of works of art with contemporary reality, the active participation of art in socialist construction. Each artist had to understand the meaning of the events taking place in the country, be able to evaluate the phenomena of social life in their development.

A. Plastov "Haymaking" (1945)
The method did not exclude Soviet romance, the need to combine the heroic and the romantic.
The state gave orders to creative people, sent them on creative business trips, organized exhibitions, stimulating the development of new art.
The main principles of socialist realism were nationalism, ideology and concreteness.

Socialist realism in literature

M. Gorky believed that the main task of socialist realism is the education of a socialist, revolutionary view of the world, a corresponding sense of the world.

Konstantin Simonov
The most significant writers representing the method of socialist realism: Maxim Gorky, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Alexander Tvardovsky, Veniamin Kaverin, Anna Zegers, Vilis Latsis, Nikolai Ostrovsky, Alexander Serafimovich, Fyodor Gladkov, Konstantin Simonov, Caesar Solodar, Mikhail Sholokhov, Nikolai Nosov, Alexander Fadeev , Konstantin Fedin, Dmitry Furmanov, Yuriko Miyamoto, Marietta Shaginyan, Yulia Drunina, Vsevolod Kochetov and others.

N. Nosov (Soviet children's writer, best known as the author of works about Dunno)
As we can see, the list also includes the names of writers from other countries.

Anna Zegers(1900-1983) - German writer, member of the Communist Party of Germany.

Yuriko Miyamoto(1899-1951) - Japanese writer, representative of proletarian literature, member of the Communist Party of Japan. These writers supported the socialist ideology.

Alexander Alexandrovich Fadeev (1901-1956)

Russian Soviet writer and public figure. Laureate of the Stalin Prize of the first degree (1946).
From childhood, he showed the ability to write, was distinguished by the ability to fantasize. He was fond of adventure literature.
While still studying at the Vladivostok Commercial School, he carried out the instructions of the underground committee of the Bolsheviks. He wrote his first story in 1922. In the course of working on the novel The Defeat, he decided to become a professional writer. "Defeat" brought fame and recognition to the young writer.

Frame from the film "Young Guard" (1947)
His most famous novel is “Young Guard” (about the Krasnodon underground organization “Young Guard”, which operated on the territory occupied by Nazi Germany, many of whose members were destroyed by the Nazis. In mid-February 1943, after the liberation of Donetsk Krasnodon by Soviet troops, not far from the city of mine No. 5, several dozen corpses of teenagers tortured by the Nazis, who during the period of occupation were in the underground organization Young Guard, were recovered.
The book was published in 1946. The writer was sharply criticized for the fact that the “leading and guiding” role of the Communist Party was not clearly expressed in the novel; he received criticism in the Pravda newspaper, in fact, from Stalin himself. In 1951, he created the second edition of the novel, and in it he paid more attention to the leadership of the underground organization by the CPSU (b).
Standing at the head of the Union of Writers of the USSR, A. Fadeev carried out the decisions of the party and government in relation to the writers M.M. Zoshchenko, A.A. Akhmatova, A.P. Platonov. In 1946, the well-known decree of Zhdanov came out, effectively destroying Zoshchenko and Akhmatova as writers. Fadeev was among those who carried out this sentence. But the human feelings in him were not completely killed, he tried to help the financially distressed M. Zoshchenko, and also fussed about the fate of other writers who were in opposition to the authorities (B. Pasternak, N. Zabolotsky, L. Gumilyov, A. Platonov). Hardly experiencing such a split, he fell into depression.
May 13, 1956 Alexander Fadeev shot himself with a revolver at his dacha in Peredelkino. “... My life, as a writer, loses all meaning, and with great joy, as a deliverance from this vile existence, where meanness, lies and slander fall upon you, I am leaving life. last hope I even wanted to say this to the people who rule the state, but for the past 3 years, despite my requests, they can’t even accept me. I ask you to bury me next to my mother ”(A. A. Fadeev’s suicide letter to the Central Committee of the CPSU. May 13, 1956).

Socialist realism in the visual arts

IN fine arts In the 1920s, several groups emerged. The most significant group was the Association of Artists of the Revolution.

"Association of Artists of the Revolution" (AHR)

S. Malyutin "Portrait of Furmanov" (1922). State Tretyakov Gallery
This large association Soviet artists, graphic artists and sculptors was the most numerous, it was supported by the state. The association lasted 10 years (1922-1932) and was the forerunner of the Union of Artists of the USSR. Pavel Radimov became the head of the association, last chapter Associations of Wanderers. From that moment on, the Wanderers as an organization actually ceased to exist. The AKhRites rejected the avant-garde, although the 1920s were the heyday of the Russian avant-garde, which also wanted to work for the benefit of the revolution. But the paintings of these artists were not understood and accepted by society. Here, for example, the work of K. Malevich "Reaper".

K. Malevich "Reaper" (1930)
Here is what the AHR artists declared: “Our civic duty before humanity - an artistic and documentary depiction of the greatest moment in history in its revolutionary impulse. We will depict today: the life of the Red Army, the life of the workers, the peasantry, the leaders of the revolution and the heroes of labor ... We will give a real picture of events, and not abstract fabrications that discredit our revolution in the face of the international proletariat.
The main task of the members of the Association was to create genre paintings on subjects from modern life, in which they developed the traditions of painting by the Wanderers and "brought art closer to life."

I. Brodsky “V. I. Lenin in Smolny in 1917” (1930)
The main activity of the Association in the 1920s was exhibitions, of which about 70 were organized in the capital and other cities. These exhibitions were very popular. Depicting the present day (the life of the Red Army soldiers, workers, peasantry, leaders of the revolution and labor), the artists of the AHR considered themselves the heirs of the Wanderers. They visited factories, factories, Red Army barracks to observe the life of their characters. It was they who became the main backbone of the artists of socialist realism.

V. Favorsky
Representatives of socialist realism in painting and graphics were E. Antipova, I. Brodsky, P. Buchkin, P. Vasiliev, B. Vladimirsky, A. Gerasimov, S. Gerasimov, A. Deineka, P. Konchalovsky, D. Maevsky, S. Osipov, A. Samokhvalov, V. Favorsky and others.

Socialist realism in sculpture

In the sculpture of socialist realism, the names of V. Mukhina, N. Tomsky, E. Vuchetich, S. Konenkov, and others are known.

Vera Ignatievna Mukhina (1889 -1953)

M. Nesterov "Portrait of V. Mukhina" (1940)

Soviet monumental sculptor, Academician of the USSR Academy of Arts, People's Artist of the USSR. Laureate of five Stalin Prizes.
Her monument "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" was installed in Paris at the World Exhibition of 1937. Since 1947, this sculpture has been the emblem of the Mosfilm film studio. The monument is made of stainless chromium-nickel steel. The height is about 25 m (the height of the pavilion-pedestal is 33 m). Total weight 185 tons.

V. Mukhina "Worker and Collective Farm Girl"
V. Mukhina is the author of many monuments, sculptural works and decorative and applied items.

V. Mukhina "Monument" P.I. Tchaikovsky" near the building of the Moscow Conservatory

V. Mukhina "Monument to Maxim Gorky" (Nizhny Novgorod)
An outstanding Soviet sculptor-monumentalist was N.V. Tomsk.

N. Tomsky "Monument to P. S. Nakhimov" (Sevastopol)
Thus, socialist realism has made its worthy contribution to art.

Realism (from Latin "realis" - real, material) is a trend in art, it arose at the end of the 18th century, reached its peak in the 19th, continues to develop at the beginning of the 20th century and still exists. Its goal is a real and objective reproduction of objects and objects of the surrounding world, while maintaining their typical features and characteristics. In the process of the historical development of all art as a whole, realism acquired specific forms and methods, as a result of which its three stages are distinguished: enlightenment (the Age of Enlightenment, the end of the 18th century), critical (19th century) and socialist realism (the beginning of the 20th century).

The term "realism" was first used by the French literary critic Jules Jeanfleury, who in his book "Realism" (1857) interpreted this concept as an art created to resist such currents as romanticism and academism. He acted as a form of response to idealization, which is characteristic of romanticism and classical principles academicism. Having a sharp social orientation, it was called critical. This direction reflected acute social problems in the world of art, gave an assessment of various phenomena in the life of society of that time. His leading principles were to objectively display the essential aspects of life, which at the same time contained the height and truth of the author's ideals, to reproduce characteristic situations and typical characters, while maintaining the fullness of their artistic individuality.

(Boris Kustodiev "Portrait of D.F. Bogoslovsky")

The realism of the early twentieth century was aimed at finding new connections between a person and the reality around him, new creative ways and methods, original means of artistic expression. Often it was not expressed in its pure form, it is characterized by a close connection with such trends in the art of the twentieth century as symbolism, religious mysticism, modernism.

Realism in painting

The appearance of this trend in French painting is primarily associated with the name of the artist Gustave Courbier. After several paintings, especially those of great importance to the author, were rejected as exhibits at the World Exhibition in Paris, in 1855 he opened his own “Pavilion of Realism”. The declaration put forward by the artist proclaimed the principles of a new direction in painting, the purpose of which was to create a living art that conveyed the mores, customs, ideas and appearance of his contemporaries. Courbier's "realism" immediately provoked a sharp reaction from society and critics, who claimed that he, "hiding behind realism, slanders nature", called him an artisan in painting, made parodies of him in the theater and slandered him in every possible way.

(Gustave Courbier "Self-portrait with a black dog")

Realistic art is based on its own, special view of the surrounding reality, which criticizes and analyzes many aspects of society. Hence the name of realism of the 19th century “critical”, because it criticized, first of all, the inhuman essence of the cruel exploitative system, showed the blatant poverty and suffering of the offended common people, injustice and permissiveness of those in power. Criticizing the foundations of the existing bourgeois society, realist artists were noble humanists who believed in the Good, Supreme Justice, Universal Equality and Happiness for everyone without exception. Later (1870), realism splits into two branches: naturalism and impressionism.

(Julien Dupre "Return from the fields")

The main themes of the artists who painted their canvases in the style of realism were genre scenes of urban and rural life of ordinary people (peasants, workers), scenes of street events and incidents, portraits of regulars in street cafes, restaurants and nightclubs. For realist artists, it was important to convey the moments of life in its dynamics, to emphasize the individual characteristics of the acting characters as plausibly as possible, to realistically show their feelings, emotions and experiences. The main characteristic of paintings depicting human bodies is their sensuality, emotionality and naturalism.

Realism as a direction in painting developed in many countries of the world such as France (Barbizon School), Italy (was known as verism), Great Britain (Figurative School), USA (Edward Hopper's Trash Can School, Thomas Eakins Art School), Australia (Heidelberg School, Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin), in Russia it was known as the movement of Wanderers.

(Julien Dupre "The Shepherd")

French paintings, written in the spirit of realism, often belonged to the landscape genre, in which the authors tried to convey the surrounding nature, the beauty of the French province, rural landscapes, which, in their opinion, demonstrated the “real” France in all its splendor in the best possible way. The paintings of French realist artists did not depict idealized types, there were real people, ordinary situations without embellishment, there was no usual aesthetics and the imposition of universal truths.

(Honore Daumier "Third Class Carriage")

The most prominent representatives French realism in painting were the artists Gustave Courbier ("Artist's Workshop", "Stone Crushers", "Knitter"), Honore Daumier ("Third Class Carriage", "On the Street", "Laundress"), Francois Millet ("The Sower", "Gatherers ears", "Angelyus", "Death and the woodcutter").

(François Millet "The Gatherers")

In Russia, the development of realism in the visual arts is closely connected with the awakening of public consciousness and the development of democratic ideas. The advanced citizens of society denounced the existing political system showed deep sympathy for tragic fate ordinary Russian people.

(Alexey Savrasov "The Rooks Have Arrived")

To the group of Wanderers, formed by late XIX century, belonged to such great Russian brush masters as landscape painters Ivan Shishkin (“Morning in a Pine Forest”, “Rye”, “ Pinery”) and Alexei Savrasov (“Rooks Have Arrived”, “Rural View”, “Rainbow”), masters of genre and historical paintings Vasily Perov (“Troika”, “Hunters at Rest”, “Rural Procession at Easter”) and Ivan Kramskoy (“Unknown”, “Inconsolable grief”, “Christ in the desert”), the outstanding painter Ilya Repin (“Barge Haulers on the Volga”, “They Didn’t Wait”, “The Procession in Kursk province”), scale image master historical events Vasily Surikov (“Morning of the Streltsy Execution”, “Boyar Morozova”, “Suvorov Crossing the Alps”) and many others (Vasnetsov, Polenov, Levitan),

(Valentin Serov "Girl with peaches")

By the beginning of the 20th century, the traditions of realism were firmly entrenched in the fine arts of that time; such artists as Valentin Serov (“Girl with Peaches”, “Peter I”), Konstantin Korovin (“In Winter”, “At the Tea Table”, “Boris Godunov . Coronation"), Sergei Ivanov ("Family", "Arrival of the Governor", "Death of a Settler").

Realism in 19th century art

Critical realism, which appeared in France and reached its peak in many European countries by the middle of the 19th century, arose in opposition to the traditions of art movements that preceded it, such as romanticism and academism. His main task was the objective and truthful reflection of the "truth of life" with the help of specific means of art.

The emergence of new technologies, the development of medicine, science, various branches of industrial production, the growth of cities, the increased exploitative pressure on peasants and workers, all this could not but affect cultural sphere of that time, which later led to the development of a new movement in art - realism, designed to reflect the life of a new society without embellishment and distortion.

(Daniel Defoe)

The founder of European realism in literature is considered English writer and publicist Daniel Defoe. In his works "Diary of the Plague Year", "Roxanne", "The Joys and Sorrows of Mole Flenders", "Life and amazing Adventures Robinson Crusoe" he displays various social contradictions of that time, they are based on the statement about the good beginning of each person, which can change under the pressure of external circumstances.

Founder literary realism and psychological novel in France - the writer Frederic Stendhal. His famous novels "Red and Black", "Red and White" showed readers that the description of the ordinary scenes of life and everyday human experiences and emotions can be done with the greatest skill and elevate it to the rank of art. Also to outstanding writers-realists of the 19th century include the French Gustave Flaubert ("Madame Bovary"), Guy de Maupassant ("Dear friend", "Strong as death"), Honore de Balzac (a series of novels " human comedy”), Englishman Charles Dickens (“Oliver Twist”, “David Copperfield”), Americans William Faulkner and Mark Twain.

The origins of Russian realism were such outstanding masters of the pen as playwright Alexander Griboedov, poet and writer Alexander Pushkin, fabulist Ivan Krylov, their successors Mikhail Lermontov, Nikolai Gogol, Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky.

The painting of the period of realism of the 19th century is characterized by an objective image real life. french artists under the leadership of Theodore Rousseau they paint rural landscapes and scenes from street life, proving that ordinary nature without embellishment can also be a unique material for creating masterpieces of fine art.

One of the most scandalous realist artists of that time, causing a storm of criticism and condemnation, was Gustave Courbier. His still lifes, landscape paintings ("Deer at the Waterhole"), genre scenes ("Funeral in Ornan", "Stone Crushers").

(Pavel Fedotov "Major's Matchmaking")

The founder of Russian realism is the artist Pavel Fedotov, his famous paintings “Major’s Matchmaking”, “Fresh Cavalier”, in his works he exposes the vicious mores of society, and expresses his sympathy for the poor and oppressed people. The followers of its traditions can be called the movement of Wanderers, which was founded in 1870 by fourteen of the best graduates of the Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Arts together with other painters. Their very first exhibition, opened in 1871, was a huge success with the public, it showed a reflection of the real life of the simple Russian people, who are in terrible conditions of poverty and oppression. These are the famous paintings by Repin, Surikov, Perov, Levitan, Kramskoy, Vasnetsov, Polenov, Ge, Vasiliev, Kuindzhi and other outstanding Russian realist artists.

(Constantin Meunier "Industry")

In the 19th century, architecture, architecture and related applied arts were in a state of deep crisis and decline, which predetermined unfavorable conditions for the development of monumental sculpture and painting. The dominant capitalist system was hostile to those types of art that were directly related to the social life of the collective (public buildings, ensembles of broad civil significance), realism as a trend in art was able to fully develop in the visual arts and partially in sculpture. Prominent realist sculptors of the 19th century: Constantine Meunier ("The Loader", "Industry", "The Pudding Man", "The Hammerman") and Auguste Rodin ("The Thinker", "Walking", "Citizens of Calais").

Realism in the art of the XX century

In the post-revolutionary period and during the creation and flourishing of the USSR, socialist realism became the dominant trend in Russian art (1932 - the appearance of this term, its author was the Soviet writer I. Gronsky), which was an aesthetic reflection of the socialist concept of Soviet society.

(K. Yuon "New Planet")

The main principles of social realism, aimed at a truthful and realistic depiction of the surrounding world in its revolutionary development, were the principles:

• Nationalities. Use common speech turns, proverbs, so that literature is understandable to the people;
• Ideological. Designate heroic deeds, new ideas and ways necessary for the happiness of ordinary people;
• Specificity. Depict the surrounding reality in the process of historical development, corresponding to its materialistic understanding.

In literature, the main representatives of social realism were the writers Maxim Gorky ("Mother", "Foma Gordeev", "The Life of Klim Samgin", "At the Bottom", "Song of the Petrel"), Mikhail Sholokhov ("Virgin Soil Upturned", the epic novel "Quiet Don"), Nikolai Ostrovsky (the novel "How the Steel Was Tempered"), Alexander Serafimovich (the story "Iron Stream"), the poet Alexander Tvardovsky (the poem "Vasily Terkin"), Alexander Fadeev (the novels "Rout", "Young Guard") and others

(M. L. Zvyagin "To work")

Also in the USSR, the works of such foreign authors as the pacifist writer Henri Barbusse (the novel "Fire"), the poet and prose writer Louis Aragon, the German playwright Bertolt Brecht, the German writer and communist Anna Segers (the novel "The Seventh Cross") were considered among the socialist realist writers. , Chilean poet and politician Pablo Neruda, Brazilian writer Jorge Amado ("Captains of the Sand", "Donna Flor and Her Two Husbands").

Outstanding representatives of the direction of socialist realism in Soviet painting: Alexander Deineka ("Defense of Sevastopol", "Mother", "Future Pilots", "Athlete"), V. Favorsky, Kukryniksy, A. Gerasimov ("Lenin on the podium", "After the rain" , “Portrait of a ballerina O. V. Lepeshinskaya”), A. Plastov (“Bathing horses”, “Dinner of tractor drivers”, “Collective farm herd”), A. Laktionov (“Letter from the front”), P. Konchalovsky (“Lilac” ), K. Yuon (“Komsomolskaya Pravda”, “People”, “New Planet”), P. Vasilyev (portraits and stamps depicting Lenin and Stalin), V. Svarog (“Heroes-pilots in the Kremlin before the flight”, “First May - Pioneers"), N. Baskakov ("Lenin and Stalin in Smolny") F. Reshetnikov ("Again deuce", "Arrived on vacation"), K. Maksimov and others.

(Vera Mukhina monument "Worker and Collective Farm Girl")

Prominent Soviet sculptors-monumentalists of the era of socialist realism were Vera Mukhina (monument "Worker and Collective Farm Girl"), Nikolai Tomsky (bas-relief of 56 figures "Defence, Labor, Rest" on the House of Soviets on Moskovsky Prospekt in Leningrad), Evgeny Vuchetich (monument "Warrior- Liberator" in Berlin, the sculpture "The Motherland Calls!" in Volgograd), by Sergei Konenkov. As a rule, especially durable materials, such as granite, steel or bronze, were selected for large-scale monumental sculptures, and they were installed in open spaces to commemorate especially important historical events or epic heroic deeds.

socialist realism(socialist realism) - 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 the socialist conscious concept of the world and man, due to the era of the struggle for the establishment and creation of a socialist society. The depiction of life ideals under socialism determines both the content and the basic artistic and structural principles of art. Its origin and development are connected with the spread of socialist ideas in different countries, with the development of the revolutionary workers' movement.

Encyclopedic YouTube

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✪ The onset of ideology: the formation of social 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 Writers' Union I. Gronsky in the Literary Gazette on May 23, 1932. It arose in connection with the need to direct the RAPP and the avant-garde to artistic development Soviet culture. Decisive in this was the recognition of the role of classical traditions and understanding of the new qualities of realism. In 1932-1933 Gronsky and head. the sector of fiction of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks V. Kirpotin intensively propagated this term [ ] .

At the 1st All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934, Maxim Gorky stated:

“Socialist realism affirms being as an act, as creativity, the purpose of which is the continuous development of the most valuable individual abilities of a person for the sake of his victory over the forces of nature, for the sake of his health and longevity, for the sake of great happiness to live on the earth, which he, in accordance with the continuous growth of his needs, wants to process everything, as a beautiful dwelling of mankind, 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 policy. In the previous period, the twenties, there were Soviet writers, who sometimes took aggressive positions in relation to many prominent writers. For example, the RAPP, an organization of proletarian writers, was actively engaged in criticism of non-proletarian writers. The RAPP consisted mainly of aspiring writers. During the period of the creation of modern industry (the years of industrialization), the Soviet government needed art that lifts the people to "labor feats." The fine arts of the 1920s also presented a rather motley picture. It has several groups. The most significant was the "Association Artists Revolution" group. They depicted today: the life of the Red Army, workers, peasantry, leaders of the revolution and labor. They considered themselves the heirs of the Wanderers. They went to factories, plants, to the Red Army barracks in order to directly observe the life of their characters, to “draw” it. It was they who became the main backbone of the artists of "socialist realism". Less traditional craftsmen had a much harder time, in particular, members of the OST (Society of Easel Painters), which united young people who graduated from the first  Soviet art university [ ] .

Gorky solemnly returned from exile and headed the specially created Union of Writers of the USSR, which included mainly Soviet writers and poets.

Characteristic

Definition in terms of official ideology

For the first time, an official definition of socialist realism was given in the Charter of the Writers' Union of the USSR, adopted at the First Congress of the Writers' Union:

Socialist realism, being the main method of Soviet fiction and literary criticism, requires from the artist a truthful, historically concrete depiction of reality in its revolutionary development. Moreover, the truthfulness and historical concreteness of the artistic depiction of reality must be combined with the task of ideological reworking and education in the spirit of socialism.

This definition became the starting point for all further interpretations up to the 80s.

« socialist realism is a deeply vital, scientific and most advanced artistic method, 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 a wide class of working people... Art must be based on their feelings, thoughts and demands and must grow with them.

Principles of social realism

• Ideology. Show the peaceful life of the people, the search for ways to a new one, a better life, heroic deeds in order to achieve a happy life for all people.

• concreteness. In the image of 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 also change their consciousness, 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 contemporary 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 has been argued that in this way humanism " critical realism” was supplemented by “socialist humanism”.

The state gave orders, sent on creative business trips, organized exhibitions - thus stimulating the development of the layer of art that it needed. 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 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. The 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 the non-party writers. Down with the superhuman writers! Literary work must become a part of the common proletarian cause, "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, inflame 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 vital and creative 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 claimed:

"... the writer must have a good knowledge of the history of the past and knowledge of the social phenomena of the present, in which he is called upon to play two roles at the same time: the role of a midwife and a gravedigger."

Gorky believed that the main task of socialist realism is the education of 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 tested method

So what can we, writers, masters of the word, humanists, who have chosen the most advanced and tested 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 Zegers, Maria Puimanova, Pablo Neruda, Jorge Amado and others were also classified as socialist realists in the USSR.

Criticism

Andrei Sinyavsky in his essay “What is socialist realism”, after analyzing 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 actually has nothing to do with “real” realism, but is Soviet variant of classicism with admixtures of romanticism. Also in this work, he believed that due to the erroneous orientation of Soviet artists to realistic works of XIX century (especially on critical realism), deeply alien to the classicist 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.

To understand how and why socialist realism arose, it is necessary to briefly characterize the socio-historical and political situation of the first three decades of the beginning of the 20th century, because this method, like no other, was politicized. The decay of the monarchical regime, its numerous miscalculations and failures (the Russo-Japanese war, corruption at all levels of power, cruelty in suppressing demonstrations and riots, "Rasputinism", etc.) gave rise to mass discontent in Russia. In intellectual circles it has become a rule of good taste to be in opposition to the government. A significant part of the intelligentsia falls under the spell of the teachings of K. Marx, who promised to arrange the society of the future on new, fair conditions. The Bolsheviks proclaimed themselves to be genuine Marxists, distinguishing themselves from other parties by the scale of their plans and the "scientific"ness of their forecasts. And although few people really studied Marx, it became fashionable to be a Marxist, and therefore a supporter of the Bolsheviks.

This craze also affected M. Gorky, who began as an admirer of Nietzsche and by the beginning of the 20th century gained wide popularity in Russia as a harbinger of the coming political "storm". In the writer's work, images of proud and strong people rebelling against the gray and gloomy life. Later, Gorky recalled: "When I first wrote a Man with a Capital Letter, I still did not know what kind of great person. His image was not clear to me. In 1903, I realized that the Man with a Capital Letter is embodied in the Bolsheviks, headed by Lenin.

Gorky, who had almost outlived his passion for Nietzscheism, expressed his new knowledge in the novel Mother (1907). There are two central lines in this novel. In Soviet literary criticism, especially in school and university courses in the history of literature, the figure of Pavel Vlasov, who grew from an ordinary artisan to the leader of the laboring masses, came to the fore. The image of Pavel embodies the central Gorky concept, according to which the true master of life is a man endowed with reason and rich in spirit, at the same time a practical figure and a romantic, confident in the possibility of the practical realization of the age-old dream of mankind - to build a kingdom of reason and goodness on Earth. Gorky himself believed that his main merit as a writer was that he was "the first in Russian literature and, perhaps, the first in life like this, personally, to understand the greatest significance of labor - labor that forms everything that is most valuable, everything beautiful, everything great in this world."

In "Mother" labor process and his role in the transformation of the personality is only declared, and yet it is the working man who is made in the novel as the mouthpiece of the author's thought. Subsequently, Soviet writers will take into account this oversight of Gorky, and the production process in all its subtleties will be described in works about the working class.

Having in the person of Chernyshevsky a predecessor who created the image of a positive hero fighting for universal happiness, Gorky at first also painted heroes towering above everyday life (Chelkash, Danko, Burevestnik). In "Mother" Gorky said a new word. Pavel Vlasov is not like Rakhmetov, who everywhere feels free and at ease, knows everything and knows how to do everything, and is endowed with heroic strength and character. Paul is a man of the crowd. He is “like everyone else”, only his faith in justice and the necessity of the cause he serves is stronger and stronger than that of the others. And here he rises to such heights that even Rakhmetov was unknown. Rybin says about Pavel: “A man knew that they could hit him with a bayonet, and they would treat him to hard labor, but he went. Mother lay down on the road for him - he would step over. Would he go, Nilovna, through you? ..." And Andrey Nakhodka, one of the characters most dear to the author, agrees with Pavel ("For comrades, for the cause - I can do anything! And I will kill. At least my son ...").

Even in the 1920s, Soviet literature, reflecting the fiercest intensity of passions in the Civil War, told how a girl kills her beloved - an ideological enemy ("Forty-first" B. Lavrenev), how brothers destroyed by a whirlwind of revolution in different camps destroy each other, how sons put fathers to death, and they execute children ("Don stories" by M. Sholokhov, "Cavalry" by I. Babel, etc.), however, writers still avoided touching on the problem of ideological antagonism between mother and son.

The image of Paul in the novel is recreated with sharp poster strokes. Here in the house of Pavel, artisans and intellectuals gather and conduct political disputes, here he leads a crowd indignant at the arbitrariness of the directorate (the story of the "swamp penny"), here Vlasov walks at a demonstration in front of a column with a red banner in his hands, here he says in court accusatory speech. The thoughts and feelings of the hero are revealed mainly in his speeches, inner world Paul is hidden from the reader. And this is not Gorky's miscalculation, but his credo. “I,” he once emphasized, “start from a person, and a person begins for me with his thought.” That is why the protagonists of the novel so willingly and often come up with declarative justifications for their activities.

However, it is not for nothing that the novel is called "Mother", and not "Pavel Vlasov". The rationalism of Paul sets off the emotionality of the mother. She is driven not by reason, but by love for her son and his comrades, because she feels in her heart that they want good for everyone. Nilovna does not really understand what Pavel and his friends are talking about, but she believes that they are right. And this faith she has akin to religious.

Nilovna and “before meeting new people and ideas, she was a deeply religious woman. But here is the paradox: this religiosity almost does not interfere with the mother, but more often helps to penetrate the light of the new dogma that her son, the socialist and atheist Pavel, carries.<...>And even later, her new revolutionary enthusiasm takes on the character of some kind of religious exaltation, when, for example, going to a village with illegal literature, she feels like a young pilgrim who goes to a distant monastery to bow to a miraculous icon. Or - when the words of a revolutionary song at a demonstration are mixed in the mind of a mother with Easter singing to the glory of the risen Christ.

And the young atheist revolutionaries themselves often resort to religious phraseology and parallels. The same Nakhodka addresses the demonstrators and the crowd: “Now we have gone in procession in the name of the new god, the god of light and truth, the god of reason and goodness! Our goal is far from us, the crowns of thorns are close!” Another of the characters in the novel declares that the proletarians of all countries have one common religion - the religion of socialism. Pavel hangs a reproduction in his room depicting Christ and the apostles on the way to Emmaus (Nilovna later compares her son and his comrades with this picture). Already engaged in the distribution of leaflets and becoming her own in the circle of revolutionaries, Nilovna "began to pray less, but thought more and more about Christ and about people who, without mentioning his name, as if not even knowing about him, lived - it seemed to her - according to his precepts and, like him, regarding the earth as the kingdom of the poor, they wished to share equally among the people all the riches of the earth. Some researchers generally see in Gorky's novel a modification of the "Christian myth of the Savior (Pavel Vlasov), sacrificing himself for the sake of all mankind, and his mother (that is, the Mother of God)" .

All these traits and motifs, had they appeared in any work by a Soviet writer of the 1930s and 1940s, would have been immediately regarded by critics as "slander" against the proletariat. However, in Gorky's novel, these aspects of it were hushed up, since "Mother" was declared the source of socialist realism, and it was impossible to explain these episodes from the standpoint of the "main method".

The situation was further complicated by the fact that such motives in the novel were not accidental. In the early nineties, V. Bazarov, A. Bogdanov, N. Valentinov, A. Lunacharsky, M. Gorky and a number of other lesser-known social democrats, in search of philosophical truth, moved away from orthodox Marxism and became supporters of Machism. The aesthetic side of Russian Machism was substantiated by Lunacharsky, from whose point of view the already obsolete Marxism became the "fifth great religion." Both Lunacharsky himself and his like-minded people also made an attempt to create a new religion that professed a cult of strength, a cult of a superman, free from lies and oppression. In this doctrine elements of Marxism, Machism and Nietzscheism were bizarrely intertwined. Gorky shared and in his work popularized this system of views, known in the history of Russian social thought under the name of "god-building".

First, G. Plekhanov, and then even more sharply, Lenin came out with criticism of the views of the breakaway allies. However, in Lenin's book "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism" (1909), Gorky's name was not mentioned: the head of the Bolsheviks was aware of the power of Gorky's influence on the revolutionary-minded intelligentsia and youth and did not want to excommunicate the "petrel of the revolution" from Bolshevism.

In a conversation with Gorky, Lenin commented on his novel as follows: "The book is necessary, many workers participated in the revolutionary movement unconsciously, spontaneously, and now they will read "Mother" with great benefit to themselves"; "A very timely book." Indicative of this judgment is a pragmatic approach to work of art, arising from the main provisions of Lenin's article "Party Organization and Party Literature" (1905). In it, Lenin advocated for "literary work," which "cannot be an individual matter, independent of the general proletarian cause," and demanded that "literary work" become "a wheel and a cog in the single great social-democratic mechanism." Lenin himself had in mind party journalism, but from the beginning of the 1930s, his words in the USSR began to be interpreted broadly and applied to all branches of art. In this article, according to an authoritative publication, "a detailed demand for communist party spirit in fiction is given ...<.. >It is the mastery of communist party spirit, according to Lenin, that leads to liberation from delusions, beliefs, prejudices, since only Marxism is a true and correct doctrine. at the same time tried to attract him to practical work in the party press...

Lenin succeeded quite well. Until 1917, Gorky was an active supporter of Bolshevism, helping the Leninist party in word and deed. However, even with his "delusions" Gorky was in no hurry to part: in the journal "Letopis" (1915) founded by him, the leading role belonged to the "archically suspicious bloc of Machists" (V. Lenin).

Almost two decades passed before the ideologists in Gorky's novel Soviet state discovered the basic principles of socialist realism. The situation is very strange. After all, if a writer caught and managed to embody the postulates of a new advanced method in artistic images, then he would immediately have followers and successors. This is exactly what happened with romanticism and sentimentalism. The themes, ideas and techniques of Gogol were also picked up and replicated by representatives of the Russian "natural school". This did not happen with socialist realism. On the contrary, in the first decade and a half of the 20th century, the aestheticization of individualism, the burning interest in the problems of non-existence and death, the rejection not only of party spirit, but of citizenship in general, are indicative of Russian literature. M. Osorgin, an eyewitness and participant in the revolutionary events of 1905, testifies: "... The youth in Russia, moving away from the revolution, rushed to spend their lives in a drunken drug frenzy, in sexual experiments, in suicide circles; this life was also reflected in literature" ("Times ", 1955).

That is why, even in the social-democratic environment, "Mother" at first did not receive wide recognition. G. Plekhanov, the most authoritative judge in the field of aesthetics and philosophy in revolutionary circles, spoke of Gorky's novel as an unsuccessful work, emphasizing: "people do him a very bad service, encouraging him to act as a thinker and preacher; he was not created for such roles" .

And Gorky himself in 1917, when the Bolsheviks were just asserting themselves in power, although its terrorist character had already manifested itself quite clearly, revised his attitude towards the revolution, coming out with a series of articles "Untimely Thoughts". The Bolshevik government immediately shut down the newspaper that published Untimely Thoughts, accusing the writer of slandering the revolution and failing to see the main thing in it.

However, Gorky's position was shared by quite a few artists of the word, who previously sympathized with revolutionary movement. A. Remizov creates the "Word about the destruction of the Russian land", I. Bunin, A. Kuprin, K. Balmont, I. Severyanin, I. Shmelev and many others emigrate and oppose Soviet power abroad. The "Serapion brothers" defiantly refuse any participation in the ideological struggle, striving to escape into a world of conflict-free existence, and E. Zamyatin predicts a totalitarian future in the novel "We" (published in 1924 abroad). In the asset of Soviet literature on initial stage its development are proletarian abstract "universal" symbols and the image of the masses, the role of the creator in which is assigned to the Machine. Somewhat later, a schematic image of the leader is created, inspiring the same masses of people with his example and not demanding any concessions for himself ("Chocolate" by A. Tarasov-Rodionov, "Week" by Y. Libedinsky, "The Life and Death of Nikolai Kurbov" by I. Ehrenburg). The predestination of these characters was so obvious that in criticism this type of hero immediately received the designation - "leather jacket" (a kind of uniform of commissars and other middle managers in the first years of the revolution).

Lenin and the party he led were well aware of the importance of influencing the population of literature and the press in general, which at that time were the only means of information and propaganda. That is why one of the first acts of the Bolshevik government was the closure of all "bourgeois" and "White Guard" newspapers, i.e., the press that allows itself to dissent.

The next step in introducing the new ideology to the masses was the exercise of control over the press. In tsarist Russia, censorship existed, guided by a censorship charter, the contents of which were known to publishers and authors, and non-compliance with it was punishable by fines, the closure of a printed organ and imprisonment. In Russia, Soviet censorship was declared abolished, but freedom of the press practically disappeared with it. Local officials, who were in charge of ideology, were now guided not by censorship regulations, but by "class instinct", the limits of which were limited either by secret instructions from the center, or by their own understanding and zeal.

The Soviet government could not act otherwise. Things did not go at all as planned according to Marx. Not to mention the bloody Civil War and intervention, both the workers themselves and the peasants repeatedly rose up against the Bolshevik regime, in whose name tsarism was destroyed (the Astrakhan rebellion of 1918, the Kronstadt rebellion, the Izhevsk workers' formation that fought on the side of the whites, "Antonovshchina", etc. d.). And all this caused retaliatory repressive measures, the purpose of which was to curb the people and teach them unquestioning obedience to the will of the leaders.

With the same goal, after the end of the war, the party begins to tighten ideological control. In 1922, the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP(b), having discussed the issue of combating petty-bourgeois ideology in the literary and publishing field, decided to recognize the need to support the Serapion Brothers publishing house. There was one stipulation in this resolution, insignificant at first glance: support for the "Serapions" would be provided as long as they did not take part in reactionary publications. This clause guaranteed the absolute inactivity of the party organs, which could always refer to the violation of the stipulated condition, since any publication, if desired, could be qualified as reactionary.

With some streamlining of the economic and political situation in the country, the party begins to pay more and more attention to ideology. Numerous unions and associations still continued to exist in literature; individual notes of disagreement with the new regime still sounded on the pages of books and magazines. Groups of writers were formed, among which there were those who did not accept the displacement of Rus' by "condo" industrial Russia (peasant writers), and those who did not propagate Soviet power, but did not argue with it and were ready to cooperate ("fellow travelers") . "Proletarian" writers were still in the minority, and they could not boast of such popularity as, say, that of S. Yesenin.

As a result, proletarian writers who did not have special literary authority, but who realized the power of the influence of the party organization, the idea arises of the need for all supporters of the party to unite in a close creative union that could determine the literary policy in the country. A. Serafimovich, in one of his letters of 1921, shared with the addressee his thoughts on this matter: "... All life is organized in a new way; how can writers remain artisans, handicraft individualists. And the writers felt the need for a new order of life, communication, creativity, the need for a collective principle.

The party took the lead in this process. In the resolution of the Thirteenth Congress of the RCP(b) "On the Press" (1924) and in the special resolution of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) "On the Party's Policy in the Field of Fiction" (1925), the government directly expressed its attitude towards ideological trends in literature. The resolution of the Central Committee declared the need for all possible assistance to "proletarian" writers, attention to "peasant" writers and a tactful and careful attitude towards "fellow travelers". With the "bourgeois" ideology, it was necessary to wage a "decisive struggle." Purely aesthetic problems until they are affected.

But even this state of affairs did not suit the party for long. "The impact of socialist reality, meeting the objective needs artistic creativity In the second half of the 1920s and early 1930s, the party’s policies led to the eradication of “intermediate ideological forms”, to the formation of an ideological and creative unity of Soviet literature”, which should have resulted in “universal unanimity”.

The first attempt in this direction was not successful. RAPP (Russian Association of Proletarian Writers) vigorously promoted the need for a clear class position in art, and the political and creative platform of the working class, led by the Bolshevik Party, was offered as an exemplary one. The leaders of the RAPP transferred the methods and style of party work to the writers' organization. Dissenters were subjected to "study", which resulted in "organizational conclusions" (excommunication from the press, defamation in everyday life, etc.).

It would seem that such a writers' organization should have suited the party, which rested on the iron discipline of performance. It turned out differently. The Rappovites, "frantic zealots" of the new ideology, imagined themselves to be its high priests and, on this basis, dared to propose ideological guidelines for the supreme power itself. Rapp's leadership supported a small handful of writers (far from the most outstanding) as truly proletarian, while the sincerity of "fellow travelers" (for example, A. Tolstoy) was questioned. Sometimes even such writers as M. Sholokhov were classified by the RAPP as "expressors of the White Guard ideology." The party, which concentrated on restoring the country's economy destroyed by the war and revolution, on a new historical stage was interested in attracting to its side the largest possible number of "specialists" in all areas of science, technology and art. The Rapp leadership did not catch the new trends.

And then the party takes a number of measures to organize a writers' union of a new type. The involvement of writers in the "common cause" was carried out gradually. "Shock brigades" of writers are organized and sent to industrial new buildings, to collective farms, etc., works that reflect the labor enthusiasm of the proletariat are promoted and encouraged in every possible way. A new type of writer, "an active figure in Soviet democracy" (A. Fadeev, Vs. Vishnevsky, A. Makarenko, and others) becomes a prominent figure. Writers are involved in writing collective works like "History of Factories and Plants" or "History of civil war"Initiated by Gorky. To improve the artistic skills of young proletarian writers, the journal Literary Study is being created, headed by the same Gorky.

Finally, considering that the ground had been sufficiently prepared, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution "On the restructuring of literary and artistic organizations" (1932). Until now, in world history, this has not been observed: the authorities have never directly interfered in literary process and did not decree the working methods of its participants. Previously, governments banned and burned books, imprisoned authors or bought them, but did not regulate the conditions for the existence of literary unions and groups, much less dictated methodological principles.

The resolution of the Central Committee spoke of the need to liquidate the RAPP and unite all writers who support the policy of the party and seek to participate in socialist construction into a single Union of Soviet Writers. Similar resolutions were immediately adopted by the majority of the union republics.

Soon preparations began for the First All-Union Congress of Writers, which was led by the organizing committee headed by Gorky. The writer's activity in carrying out the party line was clearly encouraged. In the same 1932, the "Soviet public" widely celebrated Gorky's "40th anniversary of literary and revolutionary activity", and then the main street of Moscow, the plane and the city where he spent his childhood were named after him.

Gorky is also involved in the formation of a new aesthetic. In the middle of 1933 he published an article "On Socialist Realism". It repeats the theses repeatedly varied by the writer in the 1930s: world literature is based on the struggle of classes, "our young literature is called upon by history to finish off and bury everything hostile to people," that is, "philistinism" widely interpreted by Gorky. On the essence of affirming pathos new literature and its methodology is said briefly and in the most general terms. According to Gorky, the main task of young Soviet literature is "... to excite that proud joyful pathos that gives our literature a new tone, which will help create new forms, create the new direction we need - socialist realism, which - it goes without saying - can be created only on the facts of socialist experience. It is important to emphasize one circumstance here: Gorky speaks of social realism as a matter of the future, and the principles of the new method are not very clear to him. In the present, according to Gorky, socialist realism is still being formed. Meanwhile, the term itself already appears here. Where did it come from and what was meant by it?

Let us turn to the memoirs of I. Gronsky, one of the party leaders assigned to literature to guide it. In the spring of 1932, says Gronsky, a commission of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was created to specifically address the problems of restructuring literary and artistic organizations. The commission included five people who did not show themselves in literature: Stalin, Kaganovich, Postyshev, Stetsky and Gronsky.

On the eve of the commission meeting, Stalin summoned Gronsky and declared that the issue of dispersing the RAPP had been resolved, but “creative issues remain unresolved, and the main one is the question of Rapp’s dialectical-creative method. Tomorrow, at the commission, the Rapp’s people will certainly raise this issue. in advance, before the meeting, determine our attitude towards it: do we accept it or, on the contrary, reject it. Do you have any proposals on this matter? .

Stalin's attitude to the problem of the artistic method is very indicative here: if it is unprofitable to use the Rappov method, it is necessary to put forward a new one right there, in opposition to it. Stalin himself, busy with state affairs, had no ideas on this score, but he had no doubt that in a single artistic union it was necessary to introduce a single method into use, which would make it possible to manage the writers' organization, ensuring its clear and harmonious functioning and, therefore, the imposition of a single state ideology.

Only one thing was clear: the new method must be realistic, because all sorts of "formal contrivances" by the ruling elite, brought up on the work of revolutionary democrats (Lenin resolutely rejected all "isms"), were considered inaccessible to the broad masses, namely, the art of the proletariat was supposed to focus on the latter. . Since the end of the 1920s, writers and critics have been groping for the essence of the new art. According to Rapp's theory of the "dialectical-materialistic method", one should have been equal to the "psychological realists" (mainly L. Tolstoy), putting at the forefront a revolutionary worldview that helps "tearing off all and sundry masks." Approximately the same was said by Lunacharsky ("social realism"), and Mayakovsky ("tendentious realism"), and A. Tolstoy ("monumental realism"), among other definitions of realism there were such as "romantic", "heroic" and simply "proletarian". Note that the Rappovites considered romanticism in contemporary art unacceptable.

Gronsky, who had never thought about the theoretical problems of art before, started with the simplest - he suggested the name of the new method (he did not sympathize with the Rappovists, therefore the method did not accept them), rightly judging that later theorists would fill the term with appropriate content. He proposed the following definition: "proletarian socialist, and even better communist realism." Stalin chose the second of the three adjectives, justifying his choice as follows: “The advantage of such a definition is, firstly, brevity (only two words), secondly, clarity and, thirdly, an indication of continuity in the development of literature (literature of critical realism, which arose at the stage of the bourgeois-democratic social movement, passes, develops into the literature of socialist realism at the stage of the proletarian socialist movement).

The definition is clearly unfortunate, since the artistic category in it is preceded by a political term. Subsequently, the theorists of socialist realism tried to justify this conjugation, but were not very successful in doing so. In particular, academician D. Markov wrote: “... tearing the word “socialist” from the general name of the method, they interpret it in a bare sociological way: they believe that this part of the formula reflects only the artist’s worldview, his socio-political convictions. Meanwhile, it should be it is clearly understood that we are talking about a certain (but also extremely free, not limited, in fact, in its theoretical rights) type of aesthetic knowledge and transformation of the world. This was said more than half a century after Stalin, but it hardly clarifies anything, since the identity of the political and aesthetic categories has not yet been eliminated.

Gorky at the First All-Union Writers' Congress in 1934 defined only the general trend of the new method, also emphasizing its social orientation: "Socialist realism affirms being as an act, as creativity, the purpose of which is the continuous development of the most valuable individual abilities of a person for the sake of his victory over the forces of nature, for the sake of his health and longevity, for the sake of great happiness to live on earth. Obviously, this pathetic declaration added nothing to the interpretation of the essence of the new method.

So, the method has not yet been formulated, but has already been put into use, the writers have not yet realized themselves as representatives of the new method, and its genealogy is already being created, historical roots. Gronsky recalled that in 1932, “at a meeting, all the members of the commission who spoke and chaired by P. P. Postyshev declared that socialist realism, as creative method fiction and art actually arose long ago, long before October revolution, mainly in the work of M. Gorky, and we have just given him a name (formulated) ".

Socialist realism found a clearer formulation in the Charter of the SSP, in which the style of party documents makes itself felt tangibly. So, “socialist realism, being the main method of Soviet fiction and literary criticism, requires from the artist a truthful, historically concrete depiction of reality in its revolutionary development. working people in the spirit of socialism. Curiously, the definition of social realism as main method of literature and criticism, according to Gronsky, arose as a result of tactical considerations and should have been removed in the future, but remained forever, since Gronsky simply forgot to do it.

The Charter of the SSP noted that socialist realism does not canonize the genres and methods of creativity and provides ample opportunities for creative initiative, but how this initiative can manifest itself in a totalitarian society was not explained in the Charter.

In subsequent years, in the works of theoreticians, the new method gradually acquired visible features. Socialist realism was characterized by the following features: a new theme (first of all, the revolution and its achievements) and a new type of hero (worker), endowed with a sense of historical optimism; disclosure of conflicts in the light of the prospects for the revolutionary (progressive) development of reality. In the most general form, these signs can be reduced to ideology, party spirit and nationality (the latter meant, along with topics and issues close to the interests of the "masses", the simplicity and accessibility of the image, "necessary" for the general reader).

Since it was announced that socialist realism arose even before the revolution, it was necessary to draw a line of continuity with pre-October literature. As we know, Gorky and, first of all, his novel "Mother" was declared the founder of socialist realism. However, one work was, of course, not enough, and there were no others of this kind. Therefore, it was necessary to raise the creativity of the revolutionary democrats to the shield, which, unfortunately, could not be placed next to Gorky in all ideological parameters.

Then the signs of a new method begin to look for in modern times. Better than others fit the definition of socialist realist works "Rout" by A. Fadeev, "Iron Stream" by A. Serafimovich, "Chapaev" by D. Furmanov, "Cement" by F. Gladkov.

K. Trenev's heroic revolutionary drama Lyubov Yarovaya (1926), which, according to the author, expressed his full and unconditional recognition of the truth of Bolshevism, was especially successful. The play contains the entire set of characters that later became a "common place" in Soviet literature: an "iron" party leader; who accepted the revolution "with his heart" and who has not yet fully realized the need for the strictest revolutionary discipline "brother" (as the sailors were then called); the intellectual slowly comprehending the justice of the new order, weighed down by the "burden of the past"; adapting to the harsh necessity of the "petty bourgeois" and "enemy", actively fighting the new world. In the center of events is the heroine, in agony comprehending the inevitability of the "truth of Bolshevism."

Love Yarovaya stands in front of hardest choice: in order to prove one's devotion to the cause of the revolution, it is necessary to extradite her husband, beloved, but who has become an implacable ideological opponent. The heroine makes the decision only after making sure that the person who was once so close and dear to her understands the welfare of the people and the country in a completely different way. And only by revealing the "betrayal" of her husband, abandoning everything personal, Yarovaya realizes herself as a true participant in the common cause and convinces herself that she is only "a faithful comrade from now on."

A little later, the theme of man's spiritual "perestroika" would become one of the main topics in Soviet literature. The professor (“Kremlin Chimes” by N. Pogodin), a criminal who has experienced the joy of creative work (“Aristocrats” by N. Pogodin, “Pedagogical Poem” by A. Makarenko), peasants who have realized the advantages of collective farming ( "Bars" by F. Panferov and many other works on the same topic). The writers preferred not to talk about the drama of such a "reforging", except perhaps in connection with the death of the hero going to new life, from the hand of the "class enemy".

But the intrigues of enemies, their cunning and malice towards all manifestations of the new bright life reflected in almost every second novel, story, poem, etc. "Enemy" is a necessary background that allows you to highlight the virtues of a positive hero.

A new type of hero, created in the thirties, manifested itself in action, and in the most extreme situations ("Chapaev" by D. Furmanov, "Hatred" by I. Shukhov, "How the Steel Was Tempered" by N. Ostrovsky, "Time, Forward!" . Kataeva and others). "The good hero is the holy of holies of socialist realism, its cornerstone and main achievement. The good hero is not just good man, this is a person illuminated by the light of the most ideal ideal, a model worthy of any imitation.<...>And the virtues of a positive hero are difficult to enumerate: ideology, courage, intelligence, willpower, patriotism, respect for a woman, readiness for self-sacrifice ... The most important of them, perhaps, is the clarity and directness with which he sees the goal and rushes towards it. ... For him, there are no internal doubts and hesitations, insoluble questions and unsolved mysteries, and in the most complicated business, he easily finds a way out - along the shortest path to the goal, in a straight line ". The positive hero never repents of what he has done, and if he is dissatisfied with himself, it is only because he could do more.

The quintessence of such a hero is Pavel Korchagin from the novel "How the Steel Was Tempered" by N. Ostrovsky. In this character, the personal beginning is reduced to the minimum that ensures his earthly existence, everything else is brought by the hero to the altar of revolution. But this is not a redemptive sacrifice, but an enthusiastic gift of the heart and soul. Here is what is said about Korchagin in a university textbook: "To act, to be needed by the revolution - this is the desire carried by Pavel through his whole life - stubborn, passionate, the only one. It is from such a desire that Paul's exploits are born. A person driven by a lofty goal, as if forgets about himself, neglects what is dearest of all - life - in the name of what is really dearer to him than life ... Pavel is always where it is most difficult: the novel focuses on the key, critical situations. They reveal the irresistible power of his free aspirations...<...>He literally rushes towards difficulties (the fight against banditry, the suppression of a boundary riot, etc.). In his soul there is not even a shadow of discord between "I want" and "I must." The consciousness of revolutionary necessity is his personal, even intimate.

World literature did not know such a hero. From Shakespeare and Byron to L. Tolstoy and Chekhov, writers portrayed people who seek the truth, doubting and making mistakes. There was no place for such characters in Soviet literature. The only exception, perhaps, is Grigory Melekhov in The Quiet Don, which was retroactively classified as socialist realism, and at first was regarded as a work, of course, "White Guard".

The literature of the 1930s and 1940s, armed with the methodology of socialist realism, demonstrated the inextricable link between the positive hero and the collective, which constantly had a beneficial effect on the individual and helped the hero shape his will and character. The problem of leveling the personality by the environment, which was so indicative of Russian literature before, practically disappears, and if it is planned, it is only with the aim of proving the triumph of collectivism over individualism ("The Defeat" by A. Fadeev, "The Second Day" by I. Ehrenburg).

The main sphere of application of the forces of a positive hero is creative work, in the process of which not only material values ​​are created and the state of workers and peasants is strengthened, but Real People, creators and patriots are also forged ("Cement" by F. Gladkov, "Pedagogical poem" by A. Makarenko, "Time, forward!" V. Kataev, films "Bright Path" and "Big Life", etc.).

The cult of the Hero, the Real Man, is inseparable in Soviet art from the cult of the Leader. The images of Lenin and Stalin, and with them the leaders of a lower rank (Dzerzhinsky, Kirov, Parkhomenko, Chapaev, etc.) were reproduced in millions of copies in prose, in poetry, in dramaturgy, in music, in cinema, in the visual arts ... Almost all prominent Soviet writers, even S. Yesenin and B. Pasternak, told about Lenin and Stalin "epics" and sang songs of "folk" storytellers and singers to the creation of Leniniana to one degree or another. "... The canonization and mythologization of leaders, their glorification are included in genetic code Soviet literature. Without the image of the leader (leaders), our literature did not exist at all for seven decades, and this circumstance is, of course, not accidental.

Naturally, with the ideological sharpness of literature, the lyrical element almost disappears from it. Poetry, following Mayakovsky, becomes a herald of political ideas (E. Bagritsky, A. Bezymensky, V. Lebedev-Kumach, and others).

Of course, not all writers were able to imbue the principles of socialist realism and turn into singers of the working class. It was in the 1930s that there was a mass "leaving" in historical subjects, which to a certain extent saved from accusations of being "apolitical". However, for the most part, historical novels and films of the 1930s-1950s were works closely connected with the present, clearly demonstrating examples of the "rewriting" of history in the spirit of socialist realism.

Critical notes, still sounding in the literature of the 1920s, are completely drowned out by the sound of victorious fanfare by the end of the 1930s. Everything else was rejected. In this sense, the example of the idol of the 1920s, M. Zoshchenko, is indicative, who is trying to change his former satirical manner and also turns to history (the stories "Kerensky", 1937; "Taras Shevchenko", 1939).

Zoshchenko can be understood. Many writers then strive to master the state "recipes" so as not to literally lose their "place under the sun." In the novel by V. Grossman "Life and Fate" (1960, published in 1988), which takes place during the Great Patriotic War, the essence of Soviet art in the eyes of contemporaries looks like this: and the government "Who in the world is sweeter, more beautiful and whiter than everyone?" answers: "You, you, the party, the government, the state, are all rosier and sweeter!" Those who answered differently are being squeezed out of literature (A. Platonov, M Bulgakov, A. Akhmatova and others), and many are simply destroyed.

The Patriotic War brought the people the hardest suffering, but at the same time it somewhat eased the ideological pressure, because in the fire of battles the Soviet people gained some independence. His spirit was also strengthened by the victory over fascism, which came at a heavy price. In the 40s, books appeared that reflected a real, full of drama life ("Pulkovo Meridian" by V. Inber, "Leningrad Poem" by O. Bergholz, "Vasily Terkin" by A. Tvardovsky, "Dragon" by E. Schwartz, " In the trenches of Stalingrad" by V. Nekrasov). Of course, their authors could not completely abandon ideological stereotypes, because in addition to political pressure, which had already become customary, there was also auto-censorship. And yet their works, in comparison with the pre-war ones, are more truthful.

Stalin, who had long ago turned into an autocratic dictator, could not indifferently watch how through the cracks in the monolith of unanimity, on the construction of which so much effort and money had been spent, shoots of freedom sprout. The leader considered it necessary to remind that he would not tolerate any deviation from the "common line" - and in the second half of the 40s a new wave of repressions began on the ideological front.

The infamous resolution on the journals Zvezda and Leningrad (1948) was issued, in which the work of Akhmatova and Zoshchenko was condemned with cruel rudeness. This was followed by the persecution of "rootless cosmopolitans" - theater critics, accused of all imaginable and unimaginable sins.

In parallel with this, there is a generous distribution of prizes, orders and titles to those artists who diligently followed all the rules of the game. But sometimes sincere service was not a guarantee of security.

This was clearly manifested in the example of the first person in Soviet literature, General Secretary of the Writers' Union of the USSR A. Fadeev, who published the novel The Young Guard in 1945. Fadeev portrayed the patriotic impulse of very young boys and girls who, against their will, remained in the occupation and rose to fight the invaders. The romantic coloring of the book further emphasized the heroism of the youth.

It would seem that the party could only welcome the appearance of such a work. After all, Fadeev drew a gallery of images of representatives younger generation, who was brought up in the spirit of communism and who in practice proved his devotion to the precepts of his fathers. But Stalin began a new campaign to "tighten the screws" and remembered Fadeev, who had done something wrong. Pravda, an organ of the Central Committee, published an editorial devoted to the Young Guard, which noted that Fadeev did not sufficiently highlight the role of the party leadership of the youth underground, thereby "perverting" the real state of affairs.

Fadeev reacted as he should. By 1951, he created a new edition of the novel, in which, contrary to life's authenticity, the leading role of the party was emphasized. The writer knew exactly what he was doing. In one of his private letters, he joked sadly: "I am remaking the young guard into the old one."

As a result, Soviet writers carefully check every stroke of their work with the canons of socialist realism (more precisely, with the latest directives of the Central Committee). In literature ("Happiness" by P. Pavlenko, "Chevalier of the Golden Star" by S. Babaevsky, etc.) and in other forms of art (movies " Kuban Cossacks"," The Tale of the Siberian Land ", etc.) glorifies a happy life on a free and generous land; and at the same time, the owner of this happiness manifests himself not as a full-fledged versatile personality, but as "a function of some transpersonal process, a person who has acquired themselves in "a cell of the existing world order, at work, in production ...".

It is not surprising that the "production" novel, whose genealogy dates back to the 1920s, becomes one of the most widespread genres in the 1950s. A modern researcher builds a long series of works, the very names of which characterize their content and orientation: "Steel and Slag" by V. Popov (about metallurgists), "Living Water" by V. Kozhevnikov (about meliorators), "Height" by E. Vorobyov (about builders domain), "Students" by Y. Trifonov, "Engineers" by M. Slonimsky, "Sailors" by A. Perventsev, "Drivers" by A. Rybakov, "Miners" by V. Igishev, etc., etc.

Against the backdrop of building a bridge, smelting metal, or a "battle for the harvest," human feelings look like something of a minor nature. The protagonists of the "production" novel exist only within the limits of a factory shop, a coal mine or a collective farm field, outside these limits they have nothing to do, nothing to talk about. Sometimes even contemporaries, who had endured everything, could not stand it. So, G. Nikolaeva, who tried at least a little to "humanize" the canons of the "production" novel in her "Battle on the Road" (1957), four years earlier, in a review of modern fiction, also mentioned V. Zakrutkin's "Floating Village", noting that the author " he focused all his attention on the fish problem ... He showed the features of people only insofar as it was necessary to "illustrate" the fish problem ... the fish in the novel overshadowed people ".

Depicting life in its "revolutionary development", which, according to party guidelines, improved every day, writers generally cease to touch on any shady sides of reality. Everything conceived by the heroes is immediately successfully put into action, and any difficulties are no less successfully overcome. These signs of Soviet literature of the fifties found their most convex expression in S. Babaevsky's novels "Chevalier of the Golden Star" and "Light Above the Earth", which were immediately awarded the Stalin Prize.

Theorists of socialist realism immediately substantiated the need for just such an optimistic art. “We need holiday literature,” wrote one of them, “not literature about “holidays,” but precisely holiday literature that raises a person above trifles and accidents.

Writers sensitively caught the "requirements of the moment." Everyday life, the depiction of which in the literature of the 19th century was given so much attention, was practically not covered in Soviet literature, because the Soviet person had to be above the "trifles of everyday life." If the poverty of everyday existence was touched upon, it was only to demonstrate how a Real Man overcomes "temporary difficulties" and achieves universal well-being by selfless work.

With such an understanding of the tasks of art, it is quite natural to give birth to the "conflict-free theory", which, for all the short duration of its existence, expressed the essence of Soviet literature of the 1950s in the best possible way. This theory boiled down to the following: class contradictions have been eliminated in the USSR, and, therefore, there are no reasons for the emergence of dramatic conflicts. Only the struggle between "good" and "better" is possible. And since in the country of the Soviets the public should be in the foreground, the authors were left with nothing but a description of the "production process." In the early 1960s, the "conflict-free theory" was slowly forgotten, because it was clear to the most undemanding reader that "holiday" literature was completely out of touch with reality. However, the rejection of the "theory of non-conflict" did not mean the rejection of the principles of socialist realism. As an authoritative official source explained, “the interpretation of life’s contradictions, shortcomings, difficulties of growth as “little things” and “accidents”, opposing them to “holiday” literature - all this does not at all express an optimistic perception of life by the literature of socialist realism, but weakens the educational role of art, tears off him from the life of the people."

The renunciation of one too odious dogma has led to the fact that all the others (party, ideological, etc.) have become even more vigilantly guarded. It was worth several writers during the short-term "thaw" that came after the XX Congress of the CPSU, where the "cult of personality" was criticized, to come out with a bold (at that time) condemnation of bureaucracy and conformism in the lower levels of the party (V. Dudintsev's novel "Not by Bread Alone", A. Yashin's story "Levers", both 1956), how a massive attack began on the authors in the press, and they themselves were excommunicated from literature for a long time.

The principles of socialist realism remained unshakable, because otherwise the principles of the state structure would have to be changed, as happened in the early nineties. In the meantime, literature "should have been bring to consciousness what is in the language of regulations "be aware". Moreover, she should formalize And lead to some system disparate ideological actions, introducing them into consciousness, translating into the language of situations, dialogues, speeches. The time of artists has passed: literature has become what it was supposed to become in the system of a totalitarian state - a "wheel" and a "cog", a powerful tool for "brainwashing". Writer and functionary merged in the act of "socialist creation".

And yet, from the 60s, the gradual disintegration of that clear ideological mechanism that took shape under the name of socialist realism began. As soon as the political course inside the country softened a little, a new generation of writers, who had not gone through the harsh Stalinist school, responded with "lyrical" and "village" prose and fantasy, which did not fit into the Procrustean bed of socialist realism. A previously impossible phenomenon also arises - Soviet authors publishing their "impossible" works abroad. In criticism, the concept of social realism imperceptibly fades into the shadows, and then almost completely goes out of use. It turned out that any phenomenon modern literature can be described without using the category of socialist realism.

Only orthodox theorists remain in their former positions, but they, too, when talking about the possibilities and achievements of socialist realism, have to manipulate the same lists of examples, the chronological framework of which is limited to the mid-50s. Attempts to expand these limits and classify V. Belov, V. Rasputin, V. Astafiev, Yu. Trifonov, F. Abramov, V. Shukshin, F. Iskander and some other writers as social realists looked unconvincing. The detachment of devout adherents of socialist realism, although thinned, nevertheless did not disintegrate. Representatives of the so-called "secretary literature" (writers holding prominent positions in the joint venture) G. Markov, A. Chakovsky, V. Kozhevnikov, S. Dangulov, E. Isaev, I. Stadnyuk and others still depicted reality "in its revolutionary development", they still painted exemplary heroes, however, already endowing them with minor weaknesses designed to humanize ideal characters.

And as before, Bunin and Nabokov, Pasternak and Akhmatova, Mandelstam and Tsvetaeva, Babel and Bulgakov, Brodsky and Solzhenitsyn were not honored with ranking among the peaks of Russian literature. And even at the beginning of perestroika, one could still come across a proud statement that socialist realism is "essentially a qualitative leap in the artistic history of mankind ...".

In connection with this and similar statements, a reasonable question arises: since socialist realism is the most progressive and effective method of all that existed before and now, then why did those who created before its emergence (Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov) create masterpieces from which adherents of socialist realism learned? Why "unconscious" foreign writers, about the flaws in the worldview of which the theoreticians of socialist realism were so willing to talk, were they not in a hurry to take advantage of the opportunities that the most advanced method opened for them? The achievements of the USSR in the field of outer space exploration prompted America to intensively develop science and technology, while the achievements in the field of art of the artists of the Western world for some reason left them indifferent. "... Faulkner will give a hundred points ahead of any of those whom we, in America and in the West in general, refer to as socialist realists. Is it then possible to speak of the most advanced method?"

Social realism arose at the behest of the totalitarian system and faithfully served it. As soon as the party loosened its grip, like socialist realism, like pebbled skin, began to shrink, and with the collapse of the system, it completely disappeared into oblivion. At present, social realism can and should be the subject of impartial literary and cultural studies - it has long been unable to claim the role of the main method in art. Otherwise, social realism would have survived both the collapse of the USSR and the collapse of the joint venture.

• As A. Sinyavsky accurately noted back in 1956: "... most of the action takes place here near the factory, where the characters go in the morning and from where they return in the evening, tired but cheerful. But what do they do there, what work and what kind of products the plant produces in general remains unknown" (Sinyavsky A. Literary encyclopedic Dictionary. S. 291.
• Literary newspaper. 1989. May 17. C. 3.