socialist realism. Theory and artistic practice. Socialist realism in literature What is socialist realism

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.

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✪ Lecture "Socialist realism"

✪ 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"

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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 the artistic development of 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. sector fiction The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks V. Kirpotin strongly promoted 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 outstanding 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." A rather motley picture was also art 1920s 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

First official definition socialist realism is given in the Charter of the SP of the USSR, adopted at the First Congress of the SP:

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 to achieve 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 phenomena public 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 was argued that in this way the humanism of "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 the 19th century (especially critical realism), deeply alien to the classic 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.

The greatest figure in socialist realism was Maksim Gorky. In general terms, his works really met the requirements of socialist realism, so the writer returned from exile in a solemn atmosphere and headed the created Union of Writers of the USSR, which included mainly writers and poets of a pro-Soviet orientation. They wrote in accordance with the principles of socialist realism, among which were nationality, partisanship and concreteness. The principle of nationality demanded that the heroes of the works come from the people (most often they were workers and peasants). Party membership called for the rejection of the truth real life and replace it with party truth, glorifying heroic deeds, the search for a new life, the revolutionary struggle for a brighter future. And reality, in accordance with the principle of concreteness, was shown in the process of historical development on the basis of the doctrine of historical materialism.

Among the most famous writers social realism - Alexander Alexandrovich Fadeev(1901-1956), one of the leaders of the Writers' Union of the USSR. His most famous works are the novels Defeat (1926) and The Young Guard (1945). Also received great support Alexander Serafimovich(nast, name Alexander Serafimovich Popov, 1863-1949). Already in early works(early 1900s) he wrote about the lack of rights of the working masses in Russia, about their struggle for freedom. He became a popular proletarian writer after the release in 1924 of the heroic epic Iron Stream. It reflects the process of transformation of the anarchic spontaneous mass of the poor peasantry under the leadership of the “iron commander” Kozhukh into a conscious fighting force united by the common goal of the struggle for the proletarian revolution, into the “iron stream”.

The most popular writer in Soviet times was Nikolai Alekseevich Ostrovsky(1904-1936). His main novel"How the Steel Was Tempered" (1932), which showed the formation of a revolutionary, was very popular in the country. Dmitry Andreevich Furmanov(1891-1926), author of the novel "Chapaev" (1923), created a cult image of the hero of the Soviet era. One of the first novels about the paths of the intelligentsia in the revolution and the Civil War, Cities and Years, which became a classic of Soviet literature, was written by Konstantin Alexandrovich Fedin(1892-1977).

A real classic of Soviet literature was Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov(1905-1984), laureate Nobel Prize in Literature 1965 for the novel " Quiet Don» (1928-1940). The main merit of Sholokhov the artist is to identify in the very common man bright individuality, sometimes an outstanding personality, turning this person into a memorable to the smallest lines, easily imagined, convincing, really living image. Sholokhov is the author of the novel “Virgin Soil Upturned” about collectivization on the Don (vol. 1-1932, vol. 2-1959) of the cycle “Don Stories”, the novel “They Fought for the Motherland”.

Alexey Nikolaevich Tolstoy(1882-1945) began to write even before the revolution, not accepting the revolution, Tolstoy emigrated. Later he considered these years the most difficult in his life. At this time, he wrote the story "Nikita's Childhood" and the fantasy novel "Aelita". In 1923 Tolstoy returned to the USSR. It was an active period of his work: the trilogy "Walking through the torments", historical novel"Peter I", a fantasy novel "The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin", a children's book "The Golden Key, or the Adventures of Pinocchio" (1936), based on Italian fairy tales. Being a very talented writer, he enjoyed great popularity and was promoted in every possible way by the Soviet party press. After Gorky's death, he firmly took the place of the patriarch of Soviet literature.

Creativity has become truly popular Alexander Trifonovich Tvardovsky(1910-1971), who not only became a great poet, but also in this very tough

A.T. Tvardovsky

I was killed near Rzhev,

In the nameless swamp

In the fifth company, on the left,

On a hard hit.

I didn't hear the break

I did not see that flash, - Just into the abyss from the cliff - And neither the bottom nor the tire.

In the summer, in forty-two,

I am buried without a grave.

time managed to stay honest man. Fame came to the poet only after the publication in 1936 of the poem “Country of the Ant”, which tells about the search for a country of universal happiness by a peasant Nikita Morgunok. His poems and poems were eagerly printed by magazines, they were approvingly perceived by critics. In 1939 the poet was drafted into the army. As a war correspondent, he went through the Finnish and the Great Patriotic Wars. From 1940 until the Victory itself, the poet did not interrupt his literary studies and worked on the Front Chronicle, the hero of which was not a soldier, but a peasant who, by the will of fate, fell into the war. The poem Vasily Terkin, completed in 1945, grew out of this cycle. Vasily Terkin is a real folk hero, folklore character. Tvardovsky's poem deserved a commendable review even from such a demanding critic as I.A. Bunin, categorically opposed to the Soviet regime. Military impressions formed the basis of the next poem by Tvardovsky - “House by the Road (1946), in which the motive of inescapable sadness and grief for losses sounds. In the same year, 1946, the poet created a kind of requiem for the dead - the poem "I was killed near Rzhev."

In the post-war years, he wrote the poem "For the distance - the distance", in which the author tries to have an honest conversation with the reader, but already understands that this is impossible. Therefore, the poem "Terkin in the Other World" (1963), although it was published, did not receive any response, and the poem "By the Right of Memory" (1969), in which Tvardovsky tried to tell the truth about Stalinism, was published only in 1987. Narodnost , democracy, the accessibility of his poetry are achieved by rich and diverse means of artistic expression.

Tvardovsky played a huge role as editor-in-chief of the magazine " New world”, which became a symbol of the “sixties”. His help and support made a tangible impact on creative biography many writers. It was during this period that the journal published works A. I. Solzhenitsyna(1918-2008) "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" and "Matryonin Dvor". The realistic clarity of the image, intonational flexibility, the richness and bold variation of the strophic construction of poetry, the skillfully and with a subtle sense of proportion used sound writing, alliteration and assonance - all this is harmoniously combined in Tvardovsky's poems, making his poetry one of the most outstanding phenomena of literature.

“Semi-forbidden” literature This includes the works of E. Zamyatin, M. Bulgakov, A. Platonov, M. Zoshchenko, A. Green, as well as those writers who, not wanting to write in accordance with ideological requirements, went into children's literature ( Yu. Olesha, K. Chukovsky) or began to write historical novels (Yu. Tynyanov).

Evgeny Ivanovich Zamyatin(1884-1937) in his youth he was a Bolshevik, participated in the revolutionary movement, but over time moved away from it. He began to write even before the revolution, his works were approved by a number of famous writers, including Gorky. In 1921, Zamyatin became one of the organizers of the group " Serapion Brothers"(L.N. Lunts, N.N. Nikitin, M.L. Slonimsky, I.A. Gruzdev, K.A. Fedin, V.V. Ivanov, M.M. Zoshchenko, V.A. Kaverin, E .G. Polonskaya, N.S. Tikhonov). In their declarations, the group, in opposition to the principles of proletarian literature, emphasized its apolitical nature, opposed ideology in art, defending the old thesis of idealistic aesthetics about the disinterestedness of aesthetic pleasure.

In 1921, Zamyatin created his main work - the novel "We" about life in a totalitarian state. This book was the first not admitted to readers. Subsequent works of the author were also not published. In 1931, he managed to go abroad, where his novel was published, which had a significant impact on the later dystopias of D. Orwell, O. Huxley, R. Bradbury. In Russian, the novel "We" was published in 1952 in New York, and in Russia only in 1988.

M. Bulgakov

One of the peaks of Russian literature of the XX century. - creation Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov(1891 - 1940). A physician by profession, he began writing in the 1920s. By the mid-1920s, he had two novels on his creative account (The Diaboliad, Fatal Eggs), autobiographical Notes on the Cuffs, dozens of stories, essays, feuilletons - all this amounted to three books of selected prose published in Moscow and Leningrad. At the beginning of 1925, the story “ dog's heart”, which was not allowed for publication and was published only a few decades later.

In 1923-1924. he writes his main work of that time - the novel " white guard” (“Yellow Ensign”), biographically correlated with the events of the “Skoropadchina” and “Petliurism” experienced by the author in the Civil War in Kyiv at the turn of 1918-1919. ( full text novel was published in the late 1920s in Paris and in 1966 in Moscow). In 1925, on the basis of this novel, Bulgakov wrote a play, which in 1926 was staged in the Moscow Art Theater called "Days of the Turbins", but after the 289th performance it was banned. The same fate awaited his plays "Running", "Zoyka's Apartment", "Crimson Island", "The Cabal of the Hypocrites". By 1929, all of his plays were removed from the repertoire, not a single line of his works was published, he was not hired anywhere, and they refused to travel abroad. The work of this great writer was condemned and not accepted either by the authorities, or by critics, or by fellow artists. And in this situation, he began to write his main work - the novel "The Master and Margarita". A novel about the freedom of the artist, about the freedom of creativity, about the freedom of man, about good and evil, about betrayal and cowardice, about eternal love and mercy. Bulgakov began to write a book, which obviously could not be printed in the USSR, and wrote it for the remaining 11 years of his life. Over the years of work on the novel, the author's concept has changed significantly - from a satirical novel to philosophical work, in which the satirical line is only a component of a complex compositional whole. The novel was published only in 1967.

He made a great contribution to Russian literature Andrey Platonovich Platonov(nast, surname Klimentov, 1899-1951). He began writing at the age civil war as a war correspondent. Gradually, Platonov went from blind faith in revolutionary transformations to a dramatic collapse of hopes to build a revolutionary paradise. This is clearly seen in his short stories of the 1920s, the stories “Epifan Gateways” and “The Hidden Man”. In 1929, Platonov wrote the novel Chevengur, which was banned from publication and was sharply criticized. In it, the writer brought to the point of absurdity the ideas of the communist reorganization of life, which owned him in his youth, showing their tragic impracticability. The features of reality acquired a grotesque character in the novel, in accordance with this, the surrealist style of the work was formed. The reorganization of life has become central theme story "Pit" (1930), which took place during the first five-year plan. The “general proletarian house”, for which the heroes of the story are digging a foundation pit, has become a symbol of the communist utopia, “earthly paradise”. Like Chevengur, it was only published in the late 1980s. The publication of the story-chronicle "For the future" (1931), in which the collectivization of agriculture was shown as a tragedy, made the publication of most of Platonov's works impossible. The publication of Platonov's works was allowed in the years Patriotic War when the prose writer worked as a front-line correspondent and wrote military stories. But after the publication of the story "The Return" (1946), which was severely criticized, the writer's name was deleted from the history of Soviet literature. And the discovery of this author happened already in the late 1980s.

Mikhail Mikhailovich Zoshchenko(1895-1958) famous for his humorous and satirical stories. By the mid-1920s, Zoshchenko was one of the most popular writers. His stories, which he himself often read to numerous audiences, were known and loved by all walks of life. In the collections of the 1920s “Humorous Stories”, “Dear Citizens”, etc. Zoshchenko created a new type of hero for Russian literature - a Soviet person who did not receive an education, did not have the skills of spiritual work, did not have cultural baggage, but aspired to become a full participant in life equal to "the rest of mankind". The reflection of such a hero produced a strikingly funny impression.

In the 1930s, he moves away from the form of satirical stories - he writes the story "Returned Youth", in which he tries to overcome his depression from what is happening around him. In 1935, a collection of short stories "The Blue Book" appeared, which the writer himself considered a novel, a brief history human relations. She caused devastating reviews and a ban on writing anything beyond the scope of satire for individual minor flaws. Nevertheless, Zoshchenko began to work on his main book - the novel Before Sunrise, in which he anticipated many discoveries in the science of the unconscious. The publication of the first chapters of the novel in the magazine "October" in 1943 caused a real scandal, streams of slander and abuse fell upon the writer. Therefore, the appearance of the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad” of 1946, which criticized Zoshchenko and Akhmatova, became logical. It led to their public persecution and a ban on the publication of their works. The reason was the publication children's story Zoshchenko's "The Adventures of a Monkey" (1945), which contained a hint that monkeys live better than people in the Soviet country. After that, hard state of mind The writer's condition worsened, he almost could not write. The reinstatement of Zoshchenko in 1953 in the Writers' Union, as well as the publication of the book in 1956, could no longer correct the situation.

A special place in Russian literature is occupied by the work of the representative of romantic realism Alexandra Green(nast, name Alexander Stepanovich Grinevsky, 1880-1932). Since childhood, Green loved books about sailors, travels, dreamed of going to sea as a sailor. He tried many professions, participated in the revolutionary movement. His first stories appeared in 1906, but he did not develop his own style until 1909, when his first romantic novel, Reno Island, was published. This was followed by other works of this direction ("Colony Lanfier", "Zurbagan shooter", "Captain Duke"). During the years of the revolution, Green began to write his most famous novel " Scarlet Sails”, a book about the power of love and the human spirit (published in 1923). In 1924 Green moved to Feodosia. Here passed the most peaceful and happy years of his life. At this time, at least half of his works were written, including the novels "The Golden Chain" and "Running on the Waves." Greene was not only a great landscape painter and master of the plot, but also a very subtle psychologist. He knew how to find traits of courage and heroism in the most ordinary people. And of course, rarely has a writer written so carefully about the love of a man and a woman. After 1925, the writer's books were no longer printed. Last years the life of a seriously ill Green passed in lack of money and longing. Real fame came to him only after his death, in the 1960s, in the wake of the upsurge that our country was experiencing.

Sad was the fate Yuri Karlovich Olesha(1899-1960), who became famous for his fairy tale novel The Three Fat Men (1924, published in 1928). The book was immediately accepted by the children and still continues to be a favorite children's reading. The genre of the fairy tale, the world of which is naturally hyperbolic, corresponded to Olesha's need to write metaphorical prose. The novel was infused romantic attitude author to the revolution. Nevertheless, criticism was skeptical, because the author did not call for heroic struggle and labor. This was followed by the novel "Envy" (1927) about " extra person"Soviet reality, stories and plays in which he truthfully wrote about what was happening in the country. In the 1930s, many of the writer's friends and acquaintances were repressed, the main works of Olesha himself were not published and were not officially mentioned since 1936 (the ban was lifted only in 1956). But Olesha continued to write without a single word of falsehood. His autobiographical notes were published in 1961 under the title "Not a day without a line." Olesha's narrative style is distinguished by a bizarre combination of colors, the unexpectedness of associative rapprochements.

Famous for his historical novels Yuri Nikolaevich Tynyanov(1894-1943), one of the founders of scientific literary criticism in our country (many of his works on literary criticism and literary criticism were published in the 1920s). Scientific research and artistic prose merged already in his first novel, Kuhlya (1925), the idea of writing which was suggested by K. Chukovsky after hearing Tynyanov's brilliant lecture on Kuchelbecker. The novel, written rather unevenly, but remaining one of the examples of the reproduction of the “spirit of the era” in fiction, was destined to become the flagship of the “Soviet historical novel” genre required by the conjuncture. In 1927, Tynyanov's second historical novel, The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar, was published, based on a deep study of the life and work of Griboyedov, which is a completely mature work with a peculiar style. With the novel "Pushkin" (parts 1-3, 1935-1943), Tynyanov intended to finish the trilogy (Kukhelbeker, Griboyedov, Pushkin). Gradually, writing became his second and main profession - from the end of the 1920s, the persecution of "formalists" began. Nevertheless, he headed the research work related to the publication of the Poet's Library series, conceived by M. Gorky, and was also engaged in translations. Despite a serious illness, he worked until his last day, writing the third part of his novel about Pushkin.

Boris Leonidovich Pasternak(1890-1960) began to publish in 1913. He was a member of the small group of poets "Centrifuge", formed in 1914, close to Futurism, but influenced by the Symbolists. Already in these years, those features of his talent that were fully expressed in the 1920s and 1930s were manifested: the poetization of the “prose of life”, outwardly dim facts of human existence, philosophical reflections on the meaning of love and creativity, life and death. Although the early poems of Pasternak are complex in form, densely saturated with metaphors, they already feel a huge freshness of perception, sincerity and depth. But Pasternak considered the summer of 1917 to be his real poetic birth - the time of the creation of the book “My Sister is Life” (published in 1922).

Pasternak's literary activity was varied. He wrote prose, was engaged in translations, having achieved high skill in this art, was the author of poems, a novel in verse "Spektorsky" (1925). But the most significant is still his lyrics. He possessed the talent to express deep and subtle human feelings and thoughts through penetrating pictures of nature. Admiration for the beauty of the world, the desire to find beauty everywhere is characteristic of Pasternak. His poems were included in the collections "The Second Birth" (1932), "On the Early Trains" (1943), "When it clears up" (1956-1959).

At the end of the 1920s - the beginning of the 1930s, there was a short period of official Soviet recognition of Pasternak's work. He took an active part in the activities of the Union of Writers of the USSR and in 1934 delivered a speech at its first congress, at which N.I. Bukharin urged to officially name Pasternak the best poet Soviet Union. But the subsequent work of the poet was less and less compatible with the requirements of socialist realism. Therefore, from the late 1930s until the end of his life, he was mainly engaged in translations - he translated Shakespeare, Schiller, Verlaine, Goethe.

Pasternak considered the novel Doctor Zhivago, written from 1945 to 1955, to be the pinnacle of his work. The novel is a broad canvas of the life of the Russian intelligentsia against the backdrop of a dramatic period from the beginning of the century to the Civil War. He touched on the secrets human life- secrets of life and death, questions of history, Christianity, Jewry. An important part of the book was the poems of the protagonist, in which the writer summed up his thoughts. Soviet publishing houses refused to publish the novel, and it was published abroad in 1957. This led to a real persecution of Pasternak in the Soviet press, his expulsion from the Writers' Union of the USSR, outright insults against him from the pages of Soviet newspapers, at workers' meetings. And the award of the Nobel Prize to him in 1958 only increased the persecution, which continued until the writer's death.

Socialist realism (lat. Socisalis - public, real is - real) is a unitary, pseudo-artistic direction and method of Soviet literature, formed under the influence of naturalism and the so-called proletarian literature. He was leading in the arts from 1934 to 1980. Soviet criticism associated with him the highest achievements of the art of the 20th century. The term "socialist realism" appeared in 1932. In the 1920s, lively discussions were held on the pages of periodicals on a definition that would reflect the ideological and aesthetic originality of the art of the socialist era. F. Gladkov, Yu. Lebedinsky proposed to name new method"proletarian realism", V. Mayakovsky - "tendentious", I. Kulik - revolutionary socialist realism, A. Tolstoy - "monumental", Nikolai Volnova - "revolutionary romanticism", V. Polishchuk - "constructive dynamism". There were also such names like "revolutionary realism", "romantic realism", "communist realism".

The participants in the discussion also argued sharply about whether there should be one method or two - socialist realism and red romanticism. The author of the term "socialist realism" was Stalin. Gronsky, the first chairman of the Organizing Committee of the USSR Writers' Union, recalled that in a conversation with Stalin he proposed calling the method of Soviet art "socialist realism." The task of Soviet literature, its method were discussed at the apartment of M. Gorky, Stalin, Molotov and Voroshilov constantly participated in the discussions. Thus, socialist realism arose from the Stalin-Gorky project. This term has a political meaning. By analogy, the names "capitalist", "imperialist realism" arise.

The definition of the method was first formulated at the First Congress of Writers of the USSR in 1934. The charter of the Union of Soviet Writers noted that socialist realism is the main method of Soviet literature, it "requires from the writer a truthful, historically concrete depiction of reality in its revolutionary development. At the same time, the truthfulness and historical concreteness of the artistic depiction must be combined with the task of ideological alteration and education of workers in the spirit of socialism. This definition characterizes the typological features of socialist realism and says that socialist realism is the main method of Soviet literature. This means that there can be no other method. Socialist realism has become a state method. The words "requires the writer" sound like a military order. They testify that the writer has the right to lack of freedom - he is obliged to show life "in revolutionary development", that is, not what is, but what should be. The purpose of his works - ideological and political - "education of working people in the spirit of socialism." The definition of socialist realism has a political character, it is devoid of aesthetic content.

The ideology of socialist realism is Marxism, which is based on voluntarism, it is a defining feature of the worldview. Marx believed that the proletariat was capable of destroying the world of economic determinism and building a communist paradise on earth.

In the speeches and articles of party ideologists, the terms of the Ibian literary front, "ideological war", "weapons" were often found. Methodology was most valued in the new art. The core of socialist realism is communist party spirit. Socialist realists evaluated the depicted from the standpoint of communist ideology, sang the communist party and its leaders, the socialist ideal.V. I. Lenin's article "Party Organization and Party Literature" was the foundation of the theory of socialist realism. characteristic feature socialist realism was the aestheticization of Soviet politics and the politicization of literature. The criterion for evaluating a work was not artistic quality, but ideological meaning. Often artistically helpless works were awarded state awards. The Lenin Prize was awarded to the trilogy of L.I. Brezhnev "Small land", "Renaissance", "Virgin lands". Stalinists, Leninians, ideological myths about the friendship of peoples and internationalism brought to the point of absurdity appeared in literature.

Socialist realists portrayed life as they wanted to see it according to the logic of Marxism. In their works, the city stood as the personification of harmony, and the village - disharmony and chaos. The Bolshevik was the personification of good, the fist was the personification of evil. Hard-working peasants were considered kulaks.

In the works of socialist realists, the interpretation of the earth has changed. In the literature of past times, it was a symbol of harmony, the meaning of existence, for them the earth is the personification of evil. The embodiment of private property instincts is often the mother. In Peter Panch's story "Mom, die!" ninety-five-year-old Gnat Hunger dies long and hard. But the hero can join the collective farm only after her death. Full of despair, he screams "Mom, die!"

The positive heroes of the literature of socialist realism were the workers, the poor peasants, and the representatives of the intelligentsia emerged as cruel, immoral, insidious.

"Genetically and typologically, - notes D. Nalivaiko, - social realism refers to the specific phenomena of the artistic process of the 20th century, formed under totalitarian regimes." "This, according to D. Nalivaiko, "is a specific doctrine of literature and art, designed by the Communist Party bureaucracy and biased artists, imposed from above by the state authorities and implemented under its leadership and constant control."

Soviet writers had every right to praise the Soviet way of life, but they had no right to the slightest criticism. Socialist realism was both a stick and a club. Artists who adhered to the norms of socialist realism became victims of repression and terror. Among them are Kulish, V. Polishchuk, Grigory Kosynka, Zerov, V. Bobinsky, O. Mandelstam, N. Gumilev, V. Stus. He crippled the creative destinies of such talented artists as P. Tychina, V. Sosiura, Rylsky, A. Dovzhenko.

Socialist realism has become in essence socialist classicism with such norms-dogmas as the already mentioned communist party spirit, nationality, revolutionary romance, historical optimism, revolutionary humanism. These categories are purely ideological, devoid of artistic content. Such norms were an instrument of gross and incompetent interference in the affairs of literature and art. The party bureaucracy used socialist realism as a tool for the destruction of artistic values. Works by Nikolai Khvylovy, V. Vinnichenko, Yuri Klen, E. Pluzhnik, M. Orset, B.-I. Antonić were banned for many decades. Belonging to the order of socialist realists has become a matter of life and death. A. Sinyavsky, speaking at the Copenhagen meeting of cultural figures in 1985, said that “socialist realism resembles a heavy forged chest that occupies the entire room reserved for literature for housing. ", fall, from time to time squeeze sideways or crawl under it. This chest is still standing, but the walls of the room have moved apart, or the chest has been transferred to a more spacious and showcase room. And the vestments folded into a screen have dilapidated, decayed ... none of the serious writers use them "I'm tired of developing purposefully in a certain direction. Everyone is looking for workarounds. Someone ran into the forest to play on the lawn, since it's easier to do this from the large hall where the dead chest stands."

The problems of the methodology of socialist realism became the object of heated discussions in 1985-1990. Criticism of socialist realism was based on the following arguments: socialist realism limits, impoverishes the artist's creative search, it is a system of control over art, "evidence of the ideological charity" of the artist.

Socialist realism was considered the pinnacle of realism. It turned out that the socialist realist was higher than the realist of the 18th-19th centuries, higher than Shakespeare, Defoe, Diderot, Dostoevsky, Nechui-Levitsky.

Of course, not all art of the 20th century is socialist realist. This was also felt by the theorists of socialist realism, who in recent decades have proclaimed it an open aesthetic system. In fact, there were other trends in the literature of the 20th century. Socialist realism ceased to exist when the Soviet Union collapsed.

Only under the conditions of independence did fiction get the opportunity to develop freely. The main evaluation criterion literary work became an aesthetic, artistic level, truthfulness, originality of figurative reproduction of reality. Following the path of free development, Ukrainian literature is not regulated by party dogmas. Focusing on the best achievements of art, it occupies a worthy place in the history of world literature.

Socialist realism is the artistic method of Soviet literature.

Socialist realism, being the main method of Soviet fiction and literary criticism, demands from the artist a truthful, historically concrete depiction of reality in its revolutionary development. The method of socialist realism helps the writer to promote the further upsurge of the creative forces of the Soviet people, to overcome all the difficulties on the path to communism.

“Socialist realism demands from the writer a truthful depiction of reality in its revolutionary development and provides him with comprehensive opportunities for the manifestation of individual abilities of talent and creative initiative, implies a richness and variety of artistic means and styles, supporting innovation in all areas of creativity,” the Charter of the Writers' Union says. THE USSR.

As early as 1905, V. I. Lenin outlined the main features of this artistic method in his historical work Party Organization and Party Literature, in which he foresaw the creation and flourishing of free, socialist literature under the conditions of victorious socialism.

This method was first embodied in the artistic work of A. M. Gorky - in his novel "Mother" and other works. In poetry, the most striking expression of socialist realism is the work of V. V. Mayakovsky (the poem "Vladimir Ilyich Lenin", "Good!", Lyrics of the 20s).

Continuing the best creative traditions of the literature of the past, socialist realism is at the same time a qualitatively new and higher artistic method, insofar as it is determined in its main features by completely new social relations in socialist society.

Socialist realism reflects life realistically, deeply, truthfully; it is socialist because it reflects life in its revolutionary development, i.e., in the process of building a socialist society on the road to communism. It differs from the methods that preceded it in the history of literature in that the basis of the ideal to which the Soviet writer calls in his work lies the movement towards communism under the leadership of the Communist Party. In its greetings from the Central Committee of the CPSU to the Second Congress of Soviet Writers, it was emphasized that "in modern conditions, the method of socialist realism requires writers to understand the tasks of completing the construction of socialism in our country and a gradual transition from socialism to communism." The socialist ideal is embodied in a new type of positive hero created by Soviet literature. Its features are determined primarily by the unity of the individual and society, which was impossible in previous periods of social development; pathos of collective, free, creative, constructive labor; a high sense of Soviet patriotism - love for their socialist motherland; partisanship, a communist attitude to life, brought up in Soviet people by the Communist Party.

Such an image of a positive hero, distinguished by bright character traits and high spiritual qualities, becomes a worthy example and an object of imitation for people, participates in the creation of the moral code of the builder of communism.

Qualitatively new in socialist realism is also the nature of the depiction of the life process, based on the fact that the difficulties of the development of Soviet society are the difficulties of growth, bearing in themselves the possibility of overcoming these difficulties, the victory of the new over the old, the emerging over the dying. Thus, the Soviet artist gets the opportunity to paint today in the light of tomorrow, that is, to depict life in its revolutionary development, the victory of the new over the old, to show the revolutionary romanticism of socialist reality (see Romanticism).

Socialist realism fully embodies the principle of communist party spirit in art, insofar as it reflects the life of the liberated people in its development, in the light of advanced ideas that express the true interests of the people, in the light of the ideals of communism.

communist ideal, new type the positive hero, the depiction of life in its revolutionary development on the basis of the victory of the new over the old, nationality - these basic features of socialist realism are manifested in an endless variety of artistic forms, in a variety of styles of writers.

At the same time, socialist realism also develops the traditions of critical realism, exposing everything that hinders the development of the new in life, creating negative images that typify everything that is backward, dying, and hostile to the new, socialist reality.

Socialist realism allows the writer to give a vitally truthful, deeply artistic reflection not only of the present, but also of the past. Historical novels, poems, etc., have become widespread in Soviet literature. Truly portraying the past, the writer—a socialist, a realist—strives to educate his readers on the example of the heroic life of the people and its best sons in the past, and sheds light on our present life with the experience of the past.

Depending on the scope of the revolutionary movement and the maturity of the revolutionary ideology, socialist realism as an artistic method can and does become the property of leading revolutionary artists in foreign countries, at the same time enriching the experience of Soviet writers.

It is clear that the implementation of the principles of socialist realism depends on the individuality of the writer, his worldview, talent, culture, experience, skill of the writer, which determine the height of the artistic level he has reached.

Gorky "Mother"

The novel tells not just about the revolutionary struggle, but about how people are reborn in the process of this struggle, how spiritual birth comes to them. “The resurrected soul will not be killed!” - Nilovna exclaims at the end of the novel, when she is brutally beaten by policemen and spies, when death is close to her. "Mother" is a novel about the resurrection of the human soul, seemingly crushed by the unfair order of Life. It was possible to reveal this topic especially widely and convincingly precisely on the example of such a person as Nilovna. She is not only a person of the oppressed mass, but also a woman on whom, in her darkness, her husband takes out countless oppressions and insults, and besides, she is a mother who lives in eternal anxiety for her son. Although she is only forty years old, she already feels like an old woman. In the early version of the novel, Nilovna was older, but then the author “rejuvenated” her, wanting to emphasize that the main thing is not how many years she lived, but how she lived them. She felt like an old woman, not having truly experienced either childhood or youth, not feeling the joy of "recognizing" the world. Youth comes to her, in essence, after forty years, when for the first time the meaning of the world, man, her own life, the beauty of her native land begin to open before her.

In one form or another, many heroes experience such a spiritual resurrection. “A person needs to be updated,” says Rybin, and thinks about how to achieve such an update. If dirt appears on top, it can be washed off; But “how can a person be cleansed from the inside”? And now it turns out that the very struggle that often hardens people is alone capable of purifying and renewing their souls. "Iron Man" Pavel Vlasov is gradually freed from excessive severity and from the fear of giving vent to his feelings, especially the feeling of love; his friend Andrey Nakhodka - on the contrary, from excessive softness; "Thieves' son" Vyesovshchikov - from distrust of people, from the conviction that they are all enemies to each other; associated with the peasant masses, Rybin - from distrust of the intelligentsia and culture, from looking at all educated people as "masters". And everything that happens in the souls of the heroes surrounding Nilovna is also happening in her soul, but it is done with special difficulty, especially painfully. From an early age, she is accustomed to not trusting people, to be afraid of them, to hide her thoughts and feelings from them. She teaches this to her son, seeing that he entered into an argument with the life familiar to everyone: “I ask only one thing - do not talk to people without fear! It is necessary to be afraid of people - everyone hates each other! Live in greed, live in jealousy. Everyone is happy to do evil. When you begin to rebuke and judge them, they will hate you and destroy you!” The son replies: “People are bad, yes. But when I found out that there is truth in the world, people became better!”

When Paul says to his mother: “We all perish from fear! And those who command us use our fear and intimidate us even more, ”she admits:“ She lived in fear all her life, - her whole soul was overgrown with fear! During the first search at Pavel's, she experiences this feeling with all its acuteness. During the second search, "she was not so frightened ... she felt more hatred for those gray night visitors with spurs on their feet, and the hatred absorbed the anxiety." But this time, Pavel was taken to prison, and his mother, “closing her eyes, howled long and monotonously,” as her husband howled from bestial anguish before. Many more times after that, Nilovna was seized with fear, but he was more and more drowned out by hatred for the enemies and the consciousness of the lofty goals of the struggle.

“Now I am not afraid of anything,” Nilovna says after the trial of Pavel and his comrades, but the fear in her has not yet been completely killed. At the station, when she notices that she has been recognized by a spy, she is again "persistently squeezed by a hostile force ... humiliates her, plunging her into dead fear." For a moment, a desire flashes in her to throw a suitcase with leaflets, where her son's speech at the trial is printed, and run away. And then Nilovna strikes her old enemy - fear - the last blow: “... with one big and sharp effort of her heart, which seemed to shake her all over, she extinguished all these cunning, small, weak lights, imperatively saying to herself:“ Be ashamed!. Don't dishonor your son! Nobody is afraid...” This is a whole poem about the fight against fear and victory over it!, about how a person with a resurrected soul gains fearlessness.

The theme of "resurrection of the soul" was the most important in all of Gorky's work. In the autobiographical trilogy “The Life of Klim Samgin,” Gorky showed how two forces, two environments, are fighting for a person, one of which seeks to revive his soul, and the other to devastate it and kill it. In the play "At the Bottom" and in a number of other works, Gorky portrayed people thrown to the very bottom of life and still retaining the hope of rebirth - these works lead to the conclusion that the human in man is indestructible.

Mayakovsky's poem "Vladimir Ilyich Lenin- a hymn to the greatness of Lenin. The immortality of Lenin became the main theme of the poem. I really did not want, according to the poet, "to go down to a simple political retelling of events." Mayakovsky studied the works of V. I. Lenin, talked with people who knew him, collected material bit by bit and again turned to the works of the leader.

To show the activity of Ilyich as an unparalleled historical feat, to reveal all the greatness of this brilliant, exceptional personality and at the same time imprint in the hearts of people the image of a charming, earthly, simple Ilyich, who “deared his comrade with human affection” - in this he saw his civil and poetic problem V. Mayakovsky,

In the image of Ilyich, the poet was able to reveal the harmony of a new character, a new human personality.

The image of Lenin, the leader, the man of the coming days is given in the poem in an inextricable connection with the time and deed to which his whole life was selflessly given.

The power of Lenin's teaching is revealed in every image of the poem, in every line of it. V. Mayakovsky with all his work, as it were, affirms the gigantic power of the influence of the ideas of the leader on the development of history and the fate of the people.

When the poem was ready, Mayakovsky read it to the workers at the factories: he wanted to know if his images were reaching him, whether they were worried ... For the same purpose, at the request of the poet, a reading of the poem was held in the apartment of V. V. Kuibyshev. He read it to Lenin's comrades-in-arms in the party, and only after that he gave the poem to the press. At the beginning of 1925, the poem "Vladimir Ilyich Lenin" was published as a separate edition.

XX centuries The method covered all areas of artistic activity (literature, drama, cinema, painting, sculpture, music and architecture). It affirmed the following principles:

describe reality "accurately, in accordance with the specific historical revolutionary development."
coordinate their artistic expression with themes of ideological reforms and the education of workers in the socialist spirit.

History of origin and development

The term "socialist realism" was first proposed by I. Gronsky, chairman of the Organizing Committee of the USSR Writers' Union, in Literaturnaya Gazeta on May 23, 1932. It arose in connection with the need to direct the RAPP and the avant-garde to the artistic development of 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 promoted 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 outstanding 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 of Artists of the 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 masters 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 writers and poets of a pro-Soviet orientation.

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.

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, 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 change their consciousness and 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 state gave orders, sent on creative business trips, organized exhibitions - thus stimulating the development of the layer of art that it needed.

In literature

The writer, in the famous expression of Stalin, is "an engineer of 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.

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.