Arts and culture - Brezhnev

Question 1

dissident artists

Answer 1

• 1974 ‘buldozer exhibition’ organised by artists Rukhin and Rabin, broken up by police driving buldozers destorying the sculptures, paintings and displays
• 1970s group called moscow conceptualists attmepted to make art which was a ‘rebellion against everyay life’

Question 2

impact of prague spring

Answer 2

• reformers in Czechoslovakia tried to create ‘socialism with a human face’, confirming Bs view that cultural liberalisation is a danger to the regime
• official culture became nostalgic like film ‘liberation’ (1970) which celebrated ww2 victory

Question 3

sinyavsky-Daniel trial

Answer 3

• show trialc(1966) against auhtors Sinyavsky and Daniel used thier own works as evidence and sentenced them to 7 and 5 years in labour camps
• early 1965 a commissioned KGB report that 1292 anti-soviet authors had written allmost 10,000 anti soviet documents

Question 4

international pressure

Answer 4

• some writers who had been imprisoned were released like Brodsky who had been subjected to phyciatric treatment was released in 1965
• dissident artists were allowed to emigrate, such as Brodsky who emigrated and won a nobel literature prize, or Sinyavsky

Question 5

art and culture

Answer 5

political scientist Piero Ostellino argued there were 3 artist types under b

• obedient functionaries - artists and intellectuals prepared to work with the system
• loyal oppositionists - intillectuals and artists critical of the system but express criticism from within official channels
• dissidents - intellectuals and artists expressing criticism oublically