Soviet discussion of art and literature, 1953-1973

Abstract

This study outlines the content and main trends of Soviet discussion on art in the period 1953-1973. It establishes the political framework of the discussion after 1953 and the link between this and the emergence of what are termed "official" and "professional" approaches in Soviet writing on art. equivalent approaches are also to be found in Soviet artistic practice and wider intellectual discussion as well. A third - strongly non-conformist and anti-Marxist- exist in the latter two fields, but not, it is argued, to the same extent in Soviet aesthetic discussion itself. Nevertheless, differences and tensions do exist in this discussion. The study examines specific areas and themes in Soviet discussion of art like the theory of beauty, the moral in art, art and society, art and form, theory of literature est and highlights the differences apparent in Soviet writings here. These are shown to result not only from the presence of non-Marxist thinking alongside the Marxist, but from a wider conflict between the "reductionist-materialist" view of art, and the approach which (without necessarily abandoning Marxist-Leninist categories) emphasizes much more the integrity and specific nature of artistic activity itself. Soviet discussion reflects a continuing balance (and tension) between these and related approaches, and the preoccupation of critics with defending one of the other, along with other factors, will keep Soviet discussion within its present contours for the foreseeable future. It will thus remain, on the whole, fairly conservative, somewhat (at times) pedestrian and at a distance, in scope and theme, from "revisionist" and other Western writing on art.