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Russia A-LEVEL History! Lenin to Yeltsin 1917-91 > Control Art > Flashcards

Control Art Flashcards

1
Q

What were initial Bolshevik thoughts on cultural policy?

A

Divided:
- some thought art should be used as control method
- others thought art should be allowed to develop, especially among workers

Not enough urgency though

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2
Q

What was the ministry of culture called?

A

Commissariat of Enlightenment

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3
Q

When was the commissiariat for enlightenment established

A

1917

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4
Q

What did the C of Enlightenment do?

A
  • encouraged artists to work with regime
  • same ideas and values
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5
Q

Art in the old regime:

A
  • heavy art censorship
  • hope that the bolsheviks would be more lenient
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6
Q

Were the Bolsheviks more lenient than the old regime?

A

Yes - shown by tolerance of fellow travelers, freedom in style in Avant Garde and encouragement to create a new culture of the proletariat of prolekult

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7
Q

Fellow travelers:

A
  • coined by Trotsky
  • tolerated non communist artists
  • artists were inspired by the revolution and changing times
  • artists non communist but sympathetic to Bolshevik values
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8
Q

Were fellow travelers accepted by all communists

A

No

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9
Q

What was the first Bolshevik cultural movement?

A

Prolekult

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10
Q

Who promoted and designed prolekult?

A

Bogdanov and lunacharsky

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11
Q

Who was head of the commissariat of enlightenment?

A

Lunacharsky

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12
Q

What was prolekults aim?

A
  • challenge high culture and bourgeoise influence
  • create proletarian artists, nurturing art among working people
  • use new tech and influence of factories to inspire culture for the proletariat
  • reflect values of new society - collectivism
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13
Q

Constructivists

A

Members of the assembled proletarian group of artists who wanted to create proletarian culture

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14
Q

Examples of peasant created culture

A
  • festivals on socialism (rations given out to increase popularity
  • workers write own stories and make own production
  • smithy magazine to publicise proletarian poetry
  • 1920 anniversary of rev = 8000 person reenactment of storming the winter palace
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15
Q

Issues with prolekult

A
  • too much freedom of expression - could the proletariat be trusted? Not controlled by party
  • Lenin disagreed with strictly proletarian art - art should be universal in society
  • some art too difficult to understand
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16
Q

What is avant garde?

A

Abstract art which represents the changing times of revolution

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17
Q

What were the key art styles of avant garde?

A
  • abstract
  • futurism
  • modernism
  • changing times, optimism and new ideas represented
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18
Q

Did the government use avant garde?

A

Artists teamed up with the government to produce propaganda art - however fellow travelers were still tollerated

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19
Q

Example of govt. using propaganda artist

A
  • Mayakovsky
  • poet and playrite
  • slogans and graphic posters for propaganda - especially useful in the civil war
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20
Q

Fellow traveller avant garde artists

A

Malevich and Kandinsky

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21
Q

Failure of avant garde theatre

A
  • meyerhold
  • ‘mystery Bouffe’ pageant
  • workers defeating their exploiters = revolutionary and communist sentiment
  • too complex and cancelled after one performance
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22
Q

Cinema in avant garde

A

Sergei Einstein:
1924 - strike
1925 - Battleship Potemkin
- sometimes imagery too experimental

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23
Q

Successful director in the Soviet Union:

A

Sergei einstein

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24
Q

Stalins views on avantgarde and prolekult

A
  • criticised freedom that was allowed
  • thought was too experimental and didn’t achieve sweeping away old, bourgeoise influence
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25
Q

Why did Stalin introduce the cultural revolution?

A
  • freedom under Lenin criticised
  • 5yp and collectivisation meant the END of the bourgeois and kulak classes (so their culture needed to be gone too)
  • to motivate workers in industrialisation effort
  • finally sweep away bourgeois influence
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26
Q

Did the cultural revolution support fellow travelers and traditional artists?

A

No - it was an attack

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27
Q

How was Komsomol used in the Cultural revolution

A
  • youth organisation of the communist party
  • used to root out and snitch on old “bourgeoise elements’
  • eg: booed theatre productions that were too bourgeois
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28
Q

What was introduced in the cultural revolution to monitor literature?

A

RAPP:
- Russian Association of Proletarian Writers

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29
Q

What did RAPP do:

A
  • condemn fellow travelers
  • didn’t like writers who focused on individualism
  • didn’t like experimental technique
  • opposed bourgeoise writing
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30
Q

What did RAPP like?

A
  • books on workers achievements:
  • the cult of the little man
  • glorified achievements of workers and farmers
    ( fit in with 5YP and collectivisation )
31
Q

Example of a Cult of The little man

A

Time Forward:
Katev - 1932
- record breaking shift at Magnitogorsk - 5YP influence, showing achievements of building Magnitogorsk

32
Q

When was RAPP closed down?

A

1932

33
Q

What was RAPP replaced with

A
  • union of soviet writers
34
Q

What did the union of soviet writers do?

A
  • policed the socialist realism movement
  • rewarded conformation
  • restricted others
35
Q

What did closing down of RAPP coincide with?

A

Start of socialist realism movement

36
Q

what happened to quality of work inter socialist realism?

A

Zoshchenko - conformed but work suffered

37
Q

Stalin on writers and artists on socialist realism:

A

Artists and writers are ‘engineers of human souls’

  • shows he places the role of art high
  • shows he thinks art is incredibly influential
38
Q

What were the aims of socialist realism?

A
  • produce idealised images of socialist life
  • inspire people to achieve
  • convince that 1935 statement of ‘life had become more joyous’ was true
  • provide escapism - not official but could be interpreted this ways due to awful working conditions
39
Q

Art under socialist realism:

A

NO EXPERIMENTATION:
- contrasted freedom under AVANT GARDE
- reflected 5YP, workers and peasants
- Stalin as the benefactor of human happiness - the Cult was engrained in socialist realism - propaganda

40
Q

Socialist realism literature

A
  • move away from the cult of the little man - highlight socialist Heroes
  • high brow mirrored traditional folk stories: Sholokovs ‘As the Don Flows’
  • low brow detective and war stories, thwart capitalists
  • publishing was monitored by the party
41
Q

How was literature infiltrated by socialist thought made widely available?

A
  • tenfold in number of library acquisitions
  • low priced books
    Even the poor could be indoctrinated
42
Q

Film in socialist realism

A

Eg: Einsteins revolutionary films praised - October 1927 -
- 10 yr anniversary
- mass movement recreated - deaths
- used as propaganda especially in WWII

43
Q

Aims of socialist realism:

A
  • accessible - indoctrinate all
  • out of touch BUT provided: escapism, inspiration, education, wide culture
  • propaganda
  • mobilise support for 5YPs at many levels
44
Q

Were restrictions raised/lowered after the war?

A

Lowered - more freedom
Also Stalin getting old, also rebuilding is the bigger fish to fry so control of culture can take the back seat

45
Q

Examples of relaxation of rules after the war:

A

Pasternak and Akhmatova allowed to give public readings of their poetry in Moscow

46
Q

Relaxation of rules after war BUT what was too far?

A
  • western influences
  • condemned in Zandovschina
47
Q

What was Zandovschina?

A

1946
- removal of post war emergence of relaxed restrictions
- said to be ‘western influence’
- xenophobic=ophobic na fuelled by cold war

48
Q

Example of Zandovschina:

A
  • Shostakovich pianist
  • tunes getting too experimental;
  • so Zandovschina showed him acceptable tunes - caused humiliation
  • he restricted himself to film scores thereafter
49
Q

What did Akhamatova and Pasternak decide to do because of the socialist realism restrictions provided by the Union of Soviet Writers?

A

Gave up writing : Genre of Silence
- Mayakovsky committed suicide

50
Q

What did destabilisation under Khrushchev mean for rules

A
  • relaxation of general rules
  • decreasing surveillance and terror

Means people hopeful for relaxation for artists

51
Q

How did Khrushchev personally damage Stalins view on art?

A
  • criticised him directly
  • published banned work personally like the work of BABEL (Babel was previously shot in the purges)
52
Q

Example of relaxation of rules under Khrushchev

A
  • publication of ‘one day in the life of Ivan Denisovich’ by Solshenitsyn - reported on gulags and terror
  • this work criticised Stalin - showed dark sides of the regime under him SO supported destabilisation - and Khrushchev power

However restrictions on art still applied

53
Q

Music and poetry:

A
  • experimental poetry allowed under Khrushchev
  • jazz reappeared after being banned under Stalin
54
Q

Sholokov on soviet culture

A

‘Grey trash’

55
Q

Writers in Khrushchev era writing to speak out:

A
  • new themes emerged - spiritual concerns
  • adultery, divorce, alcoholism, rural life
  • did not adhere to socialist realism and the ‘idealised life’

LITERATURE OF THE CONSCIENCE

56
Q

Low brow criticisms in Khrushchev era

A
  • science fiction criticised soviet system
  • critiqued society
57
Q

Youth culture 1950s:

A
  • western music
  • rock and roll, pop
  • western fashion - tight suits and skirts stilyagi
  • described as ‘rude and ignorant freaks’
  • 1955 = voice of America station allowed
58
Q

Magnitizdat

A

Tape recorder - spread underground music to wider audiences

59
Q

Did Brezhnev return to strict rules and monitoring of culture?

A

No, however narrowed leniency seen under Khrushchev
Easier for some artists as there’s clear lines on permissible and non permissible

60
Q

Official culture under Brezhnev

A
  • propaganda
  • achievements of socialism (continuation from Stalinist era)
  • the population liked this! But artists found it BORING
61
Q

What dies Richard states call culture by Brezhnev era

A

‘The graveyard of ideas, openness and free expression’

62
Q

1970s writers nonconformity

A
  • Soviet culture now conservative
  • writers more trouble for sexual themes, not political ones
  • derevenshchiki school of village prose highlighted values of simple rural life
  • could be seen as critique of city life - govt didn’t fully approve
63
Q

Music in the 1970s:

A

Increasing western influence
- Vladimir vystotsky - guitar poet who sung of sex and delinquency
- died in 1980 = huge grief from young people - worried govt
- politburo saw influence of rock and pop inevitable
- controlled by limiting radio airtime (undermined by cassette recorder in 80s)

64
Q

Pasternak

A

Clash with Khrushchev
- novel Doctor Zhivago - civil war story and critiqued revolution
- banned text before reading fully!
- smuggled abroad to Italy - 1957
- positive reception AND 1958 Nobel Prize for literature
- Khrushchev banned him from receiving it
= international embarrassment, regretted actions later

65
Q

Khrushchev and Abstract art

A

HATED IT!
- 1962 exhibition in kremlin hall
- ‘a donkey could smear better art with its tail’
- artists harangued publically and left afraid of imprisonment
- no official action against them!

66
Q

1961 conference

A

To decide which dance moves permissible - Komsomol patrolled streets and dance halls to snitch!

67
Q

Why did Khrushchevs tolerance fluctuate

A
  • mood swings
  • worse in later years
  • that was preserved in Brezhnev and so on
68
Q

trial of Joseph Brodsky - 1964

A
  • poet encouraged by Akhmatova
  • poems read at secret gatherings
  • SP became aware
  • 5 years hard labour!

Clearly sending an example to other poets!
Controversy when trial records sent abroad - release granted after 2 years
Showed Brezhnev had increased limits than Khrushchev

69
Q

Sinyavsky and Daniel

A

1966 -
- published short novels showing harsh realities of the Soviet Union
- arrested and accused of anti Soviet propaganda - article 70
- protests from students and 63 intellectuals , 200 letters to 23rd party congress asking to review the case
Sinyavsky - 7 years
Daniel - 5 years

Warning

70
Q

Control under Brezhnev

A
  • awards and privileges
  • employment withdrawal
  • stern talks (usually enough)
71
Q

Solzhenitsyn

A
  • expelled from writers union 1969
  • then from Soviet Union 1947
  • ‘the gulag archipelago’ - condemned
72
Q

Andropov dealing with pop culture:

A
  • difficult as a lot underground
  • accommodated some pop
  • only 20% radio airtime
  • commission to vet all rock groups
  • Komsomol AGAIN
73
Q

How did the public view nonconformist artists

A
  • self indulgent - non communist
  • successful indoctrination
74
Q

Overview

A
  • Lenin = much freedom, some worries but bigger fish to fry
  • Stalin = terror to suppress
  • Khrushchev = relaxation, got tighter towards end but no HUGE terror or persecution
  • Brezhnev = made examples of ‘extremist artists’, more clear boundaries

From beginning of regime, propaganda by artists utilised BUT became more important as terror lessons

Russia A-LEVEL History! Lenin to Yeltsin 1917-91 (18 decks)

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