Soviet Art Research Articles

Два «русских стиля», Владимир Стасов и один миф в истории русского искусства XIX века

An actual look at the Russian artistic process of the 19th century is largely determined by the experience of Soviet art history, which, in turn, appealed to the authority of the critic Vladimir Stasov (1824–1906). One of the plots that allow us to assess the tendentiousness of his interpretations is related to the question of the Russian Style in the architecture of post-reform Russia. Now the subjectivist and contradictory nature of Stasov’s judgments about national and democratic art is reflected by researchers. However, as the author of this article shows, the reading of Stasov’s texts by Soviet architectural historians was also biased. This can be clearly seen in the example of the idea developed by Evgenia I. Kirichenko about what the confrontation between two different versions of the Russian Style, reflecting the political opposition of the official nationality and the diverse intelligentsia allegedly took place in architecture in the 1870s and 1890s. Indeed, one can find an opposition between two alternatively versions of nationalized architecture that runs through Stasov’s texts. But a closer reading of them, it becomes clear that the critic distinguishes not synchronously developing official and democratic versions of the Russian Style, but two artistic eras — associated with the reigns of Nicholas I and Alexander II, respectively. Stasov’s apologia for the Russian Style of Victor Hartman and Ivan Ropette, as opposed to the state-official architecture of Konstantin Thon, had a socio-political tone, but there was no connection between the ropetovshchina and the radical intelligentsia’s views. On the contrary, the pathos of his speeches consisted in great sympathy for the cause of the reforms of Alexander II, a quarter-century of whose reign was described by Stasov as a period of unprecedented liberation of Russian creative spirit. The making difference of the Russian Style according to the “party affiliation” of architects and artists is counterproductive, since this affiliation itself is very doubtful. Periodization, in the opinion of the author of the article, is a much more adequate method of systematizing the materials of the Russian Style.

ГОЛОС, ТЕКСТ И ИЗОБРАЖЕНИЕ В ПОЗДНЕСОВЕТСКОМ ДОКУМЕНТАЛЬНОМ КИНО: ФИЛЬМ МИХАИЛА РОММА «И ВСЁ-ТАКИ Я ВЕРЮ…»

The subject of the article is the late Soviet cultural logics manifested through the medial specifics of the film. Based on the material of the documentary film "And Still I Believe..." by Mikhail Romm (1974), the question is raised about the relationship between voice, text and image, and cultural and anthropological modes they offer the viewer. One of the key concepts for analyzing the film and determining these modes is the concept of intermediality. In relation to Soviet culture, two main strategies of intermediality in Soviet art practices are identified, based on existing research, through which Romm's film is then analyzed. Of particular importance to the work is the category of the (mediatized) voice, its place in Soviet culture, and more specifically, Mikhail Romm's voice and the intermedial transformations that it undergoes in the film. The relationship between voice, text, and image in late Soviet documentary films demonstrates interesting artistic strategies and allows us to problematize the position of the Soviet subject.

Вопросы национальной специфики русского искусства XVIII столетия в изданиях первой половины ХХ века

The history of the research into the specifics of the national artistic heritage is closely related to the identification of its significance and role in the world art history. The choice of the period under consideration results from the then interest in the Russian national art identity which in its turn was brought forth by the specifics of the national art studies evolution — from a vigorous pace of its contemporary forms development at the beginning of the last century towards the postwar ideologized academicism. The problem stems from the confrontation period between “the westerners” and “the slavophiles”. “The Art World” artistic group members who were the first to recognize the great artistic value of the 18th century creative legacy also got interested in the specifics of the Russian artistic school. They used to see the new Russian art to have been influenced by the foreign tradition for a long time. They assumed that it was until the end of the century that it acquired its own authenticity. Throughout the first decade of the Soviet Regime the national identity issue was far from the topical ones. The research into the inimitable originality of the Russian art assumed its top priority in the 1930s when the course towards social realism was proclaimed to be the mainstream doctrine. That brought forth an intense research of its origin. As a result the 18th century art tended to be recognized as a stage forerunning the 19th-century critical realism. An idea to blend the two principles — the folk and the realistic, gave birth to the formation of a new approach towards understanding the nature of the national. The acuteness of “the Western vs the Russian” antinomy was mitigated by conceptualization of a high demand for the Russian national culture, which is clearly seen in the works by N. N. Kovalenskaya. It was her who was the first to recognize the rapid development of the Russian national art to be the major feature of the Russian national specifics. Throughout the postwar decade the awareness of the significance of the realistic approach towards the national artistic authenticity was reinforced by the interest towards Old Russian cultural heritage. The end of the 1950s witnessed the completion of the cycle — the one born from the ideas of the mid-19th century, started on the verge of the centuries and continued by the Soviet art scholars, with inevitable respective ideological amendments being introduced.

Воображая раскрепощение мусульманок советского Туркестана

The agitation posters on Muslim women's emancipation and Bolsheviks' gender policy open up a different perspective on the soft sociocultural reforms in Soviet Turkestan. Visual agitation was a means of cultural transfer of Europeanized and secular norms into the patriarchal public and private space and a tool for recoding the indigenous peoples' worldview. The paper investigates visual agitation and analyzes the principles of functioning of emancipation posters of Muslim women in a culturally sophisticated society. Agitation posters are examined as instruments of modernizing women's living environment in cities, villages as well as in the steppe (of a nomadic lifestyle). The paper partly raises the question of the potential limits of the perception of indigenous women's image. The theoretical researches of Soviet art critics are used for this analysis. There is an attempt made to analyze the visual propaganda in the cultural and psychological contexts as well as in terms of the artistic features of the images. The visual agitation is studied as an essential component of emancipation, which played a significant role in promoting the values of Soviet feminists in the first half of the 1920s.

Alexander Lobanov: The Reception of the Political in Soviet Outsider Art

The analysis of the oeuvre of the outsider artist Alexander Lobanov (1924–2003) reveals the mechanisms of influence of Soviet visual propaganda. This article examines the total influence of ideology and visual narratives on an artist even when they seem to have been completely excluded from artistic life (in Lobanov’s case, due to his deaf mutism). The author refers to Irving Goffman’s self-presentation theory, the works on political power and its influence by Boris Groys, and the works of psychologists on the peculiarities of compensatory activity in the deaf and mute. The work is relevant as it reflects the importance of outsider artists as part of the art process. The author mostly refers to works by Lobanov in non-Russian and Russian private and institutional collections, as well visual propaganda from the Soviet period. Works by Lobanov and other Soviet outsider artists have not been studied from the perspective chosen by the article’s author. The artist’s oeuvre is examined by Élisabeth Anstett from the discourse point of view, connected with visual images from Soviet propaganda. The author of the article singles out the peculiarities of the appropriation by the outsider artist of the ideological visual narrative, the circle of borrowed images (militarism, hero, Stalin – “the father of nations”), and certain approaches (recurrence, ornamentality, and the presence of text). As a result of an artistic and formalist analysis, the author reveals specific borrowings of approaches and stylistics from the Soviet art (poster, illustration, and easel painting) of the 1930s to the mid‑1950s. Additionally, an important aspect of the study is that the author reveals the peculiar intellectualisation of compensatory mechanisms in the construction of social representation addressing the dominant images of visual Soviet propaganda. The interdisciplinary approach of the research, with certain exceptions, could be used to analyse the creative work of other Soviet outsider artists.

School in the Soviet Painting of the 1950s: Pictorial Representation of Ideological Strategie

The main issue the paper concerns is the theoretical and cultural interpretation of the 1940- 1950s social realist art depicting the Soviet school. The study advocates for a closer attention of cultural studies to the intertwining phenomena of Soviet mundanity and politically-charged painting. Hypothetically, the interconnection could be attributed to the transformation of the Soviet culture as a whole, with the pedagogical model of Soviet school as one key institutional elements. As Soviet art represented the state political project, each topic and body served some ideological needs. Thus, the paper aims at clarifying the cultural functions school art played. The analysis is dedicated to the post-WW2 canvases, to the period of the late 1940s‒1950s in particular due to the basic shifts in socialist realist painting both in terms of form and essence, which paralleled social and political transformations. The visual studies’ approach to artistic objects adopted by the authors serves as methodological contribution to cultural studies closely connected to political history, as it highlights the ideological sources of Soviet school painting and implicit pedagogical strategies designed to implement the Soviet social policy. The article provides the examples of the most significant paintings concerning the issue. The study has revealed that the era of school art combined a significant feature of early Soviet art – monumental pathos (however, deprived of motifs connected with the Great patriotic war and the 1917 revolution) – with micro-level mundane topics, mostly labour episodes. What is particular about school as such a topic is the role this institution played in the Soviet anthropologic project. As early stages of education are proved to be the most efficient in accelerating a new type of a socialist person, a future Soviet worker, the school realm was the base of value and practices indoctrination. The state policy translated the societal needs and purposes into the art. Having examined the key ideological concepts of the Soviet culture being inherent in Soviet school painting, certain functions were discovered. School is firstly depicted just as a background of state apotheosis. Secondly, it is perceived as a sacral locus where one becomes a Soviet person is both rituals and practices. Thirdly, school art is used to explain the novel principles of constructing a new person – personal approaches combined with growing group responsibility. And, finally, all that contributes to depicting the character traits which pupils was supposed to develop at school.

СТАНОВЛЕННЯ ПРОФЕСІЙНИХ АНСАМБЛІВ НАРОДНОГО ТАНЦЮ В СРСР: ХУДОЖНІ ТА СОЦІОКУЛЬТУРНІ ЧИННИКИ

The purpose of the article is to find out the main artistic and sociocultural factors that determined the formation of professional folk dance ensembles in the USSR. The research methodology is based on a combination of historical-cultural, formal-typological, comparative analysis, which made it possible to fully reveal the range of issues associated with the subject of the research. The scientific novelty consists in identifying the main artistic and sociocultural factors that led to the formation of professional folk dance ensembles in the USSR; clarification of the general and the difference in the principles of folklore dances adaptation by Y. Churko and K. Vasylenko. Conclusions. The article concludes that in the classification schemes of the principles of folklore dances adaptation by Y. Churko and K. Vasylenko, the first (minimal adaptation of the primary folklore source) and the third (the author’s work) principles coincide. Y. Churko states that the essential in the second principle is the connection with the folklore mainstay. K. Vasylenko places before arbitrary interpretation, enrichment with tricks, borrowing the styling of classical dance, a departure from folklore is allowed. The article found the cultural factors that determined the formation of professional folk dance ensembles in the USSR: the All-Union Folk Dance Festival in 1936 in Moscow; the success of the trykolinnyi (three-part) hopak in London in 1935; numerous shows and festivals of organised amateur performances and unorganised amateurs. Among the sociocultural ones is the article “The Ballet Falsity” (1936), which introduces the idea of the inorganic demonstration of folk dance on the ballet stage, emphasised the need to create independent forms of stage presentation of this kind of choreographic art; imposition of socialist realist principles, including “nationality”, “large-scale involvement”; replicating the formula of Soviet art “national in form, socialist in content,” which required the introduction of elements of national art in ideologically verified forms.

Блокада Ленинграда в изобразительном искусстве

In the history of wars, humanity has more than once met with the blockade of cities of one of the belligerent countries. The blockade of Leningrad introduced a new page in the history of mankind. The artists who lived in the city during the blockade did not stop their work, understanding it as their civic duty, contributing to confronting the enemy and giving hope to achieve victory. Every day on the streets of Leningrad there were propaganda posters, caricatures of enemies, which were created by graphic artists, painters and sculptors. The works created by them entered the treasury of Soviet art and represent its golden fund. Despite all the difficulties of life in the besieged city, exhibitions were organized in it. The years of the Great Patriotic War inscribed a special page in the history of Soviet art, reflected the life of Leningraders in the besieged city and their struggle for victory over the enemy.

Образы советской монументальной скульптуры в мелкой пластике: трансформация функций и эволюция смыслов

Статья посвящена изучению советской мелкой пластики 1950–1980 гг. с целью определения степени и характера влияния политической пропаганды и агитации на серийное производство скульптуры малых форм в СССР. Материалами исследования явились произведения мелкой пластики и монументальной скульптуры, научные изыскания российских культурологов и искусствоведов. Раскрыты особенности идеологической направленности советского искусства, прослежена связь соцреализма с классической традицией. Описана традиция бытования скульптур в интерьерах общественных мест и в квартирах советских граждан. Проведена атрибуция мелкой пластики, созданной на заводе «Монументскульптура» и на других предприятиях. Отмечено, что сегодня советская малая пластика и выраженные в ней образы десакрализовались, став частью интерьеров кафе и сувенирных лавок, выполняя рекламные функции. Памятники вождей революции также перестали нести в себе актуальность, превратившись в исторические артефакты. The article is devoted to a study of the Soviet miniature plastic arts of the 1950s–1980s. It aims to determine the degree and nature of the influence of political propaganda and agitation on the serial production of small sculptures in the USSR. The author applied a methodology for the study of works of art elaborated by V.Z. Paperny and elements of the cultural approach and the hermeneutic method in combination with descriptive and comparative methods. The materials for the research were works of miniature plastic arts and monumental sculpture, research of Russian cultural scientists and art historians. The author reveals the features of the ideological orientation of Soviet art emphasizing the connection between Socialist Realism and the classical tradition. He describes the tradition of decorating interiors of public places, as well as of Soviet citizens’ apartments, with sculptures and shows that the tradition of decorating the interior with portraits of prominent people had a didactic task as it formed the idea of a role model. The author attributes small sculptures produced at the Monumentskulpura plant and at other Soviet enterprises, presents biographical data of the sculptors who authored both the monuments and the small sculptures. He notes the role of busts and sculptures with an ideological semantic load in the creation of the national “Soviet pantheon”. The author points out that monuments and small sculptures, due to their enormous scale and diversity, can be considered a decisive force in the formation of Soviet people’s everyday consciousness. The choice of the object of perpetuation was one of the important issues on the political agenda. The criticism of Stalin’s personality cult caused the demolition and destruction of his monuments; this did not occur spontaneously, the authorities themselves organized it. These overthrows of the image of the authorities took place almost imperceptibly, leaving no significant response in art. The author concludes that today the objects of Soviet miniature plastic arts and the images they expressed have been desacralized, becoming parts of the interiors of cafes and souvenir shops, performing advertising functions. Monuments of the leaders of the revolution also ceased to be relevant, turning into historical artifacts. Based on the analysis of studies on Soviet culture and their comparison with fiction, the author draws a conclusion about the shared fate of the symbols of power in history.

Aleksandr Deineka’s Works in the Context of the Art Deco Style

This paper analyzes the founding bases of comparisons between the Aleksandr Deineka’s artistic works and the art deco, the connection between Deineka’s works and European and American art of the 1930s Deineka’s early works refer to the avant-garde and the late ones are usually related to socialist realism. The novel artistic language is the most important link between the Soviet art and the art deco style, making the artist its most prominent USSR proponent. In this respect, the key event is the artist’s trip to the USA, France and Italy in 1935. What made Deineka engage in the intercultural discussion on artistic styles were industrial, urban, mundane and sport themes the Soviet art and art deco (mostly American) shared. A dialogue with the US Skyscraper style influenced a series of paintings and sketches, including New York. Central Park, The Road to Mount Vernon, Baseball, The Boredom. The Soviet experience contributed to Deineka’s few American works. In the most clear and general manner the art deco ideas and practical solutions were incorporated in the 1938 project of Deineka – in the decoration of the Mayakovskaya metro station, Moscow. The idea was to create a series of allegoric and technically new mosaic plafonds. Both spirit and techniques of late Deineka were partly inspired by the American art deco.

Painting against Empire: Béla Uitz and the Birth and Fate of Internationalist Socialist Realism

This manuscript describes the significance of the Hungarian‐Soviet artist Béla Uitz's contribution to the definition of Socialist Realism through the development of a style of anti‐imperialist painting based on national form that I call Internationalist Socialist Realism. Relying on previously unpublished archival documents, articles from the Soviet press, and analyses of artworks themselves, the manuscript shows specifically how Uitz developed his internationalist style through transnational encounters with leftist activists in Paris and avant‐garde artists in Soviet Ukraine. It also shows how the artist used his position as a policy maker in the Soviet cultural administration to create a platform for the exploration of the role of national form in Soviet art known as the International Bureau of Revolutionary Artists (MBRKh) and how he used that platform to ensure that Internationalist Socialist Realism became a key component of the official style of visual representation in the early 1930s. The manuscript further demonstrates that while the Soviet state's turn to Russocentrism and Slavocentrism in the late 1930s denuded Internationalist Socialist Realism of many of its radically collectivist, anti‐imperial elements, the cultural apparatus accepted Uitz's core idea that the tactile connection between the human body and the affective materiality of national forms could help catalyze political change and establish connections between different peoples. The manuscript shows that changes in representations of national form in Socialist Realism over time can reveal valuable new insight into the politics of Soviet culture, both during and beyond Stalinism.

The Photo Image of Artworks as an Instrument of Assessment and Attribution (the Case of Painting and Drawing by V. I. Shukhayev)

This article explores the use of photographic images of art pieces as a tool for assessment and attribution, focusing on Vasily Ivanovich Shukhayev’s (1887–1973) paintings and drawings. Shukhayev was a famous Russian and Soviet artist, who contributed to greatly to Russian art during the six decades of his artistic career. The artist’s works are kept in many state museums and private collections in Russia and abroad, and are also in high demand on the antiques market. Assessment and attribution of his works is, therefore, a pressing issue. Previously photographs of the pieces made at the exhibitions or during the plein-air paintings by the artist himself, as well as other photographic materials showing the artist with his works or their fragments were believed to be of low importance to the experts. The most important photos are those made within the artist’s lifetime or which belonged to the artist personally, especially if they contain inscriptions on the back. Such photos help to understand what the missing pieces look like, to confirm authorship and the creation dates, to find its variations and copies, to detect fake works, to show the artist’s working style and work stages and sometimes to prove that the artist painted the painting over (typical for V.I. Shukhayev). Altogether, creating a compilation of photographic images of works lost or distributed over the world helps shed light on the painter’s artistic career, a task particularly important for research, for museums and exhibitions, for educational work for monographs and catalogues development.
 Keywords: photographic images, works of art, assessment, attribution, painting, drawing, V.I.Shukhayev

ВПЛИВ ІДЕЙ КОНСТРУКТИВІЗМУ НА СТАНОВЛЕННЯ ДИЗАЙНУ В УКРАЇНІ

Мета дослідження – осмислити соціально-культурні та ідеологічні передумови формування конструктивізму утилітарного періоду, висвітлити вплив теоретичних концепцій на становлення нової проектної культури в Україні. Методологічною основою дослідження є системно-історичний підхід до вивчення предмета дослідження в контексті тих явищ і процесів, які мали найбільший вплив на його розвиток. Використано сукупність традиційних дослідницьких методів і підходів (індукції, історизму, синтезу, комплексний міждисциплінарний та системний підходи), що дають змогу з більшою мірою повноти й вірогідності висвітлити неоднозначну картину існування комплексного об’єкта. Наукова новизна полягає у визначенні місця й ролі мистецтва конструктивізму утилітарного періоду, його теоретичних концепцій у переорієнтуванні художніх процесів формотворення з прийомів зовнішньої стилізації на прийоми конструювання. Для розкриття теми увагу акцентовано на дослідженні питань художніх процесів 1920 – початку 1930-х років в Україні в період становлення основних формотворчих напрямів, які в ході художніх експериментів з формою виходили в реальний простір. У статті відзначено унікальність мистецьких експериментів (свого роду протодизайн), які стали фундаментом для офіційного радянського мистецтва 1920 – початку 1930-х років, що позначені певними особливостями та не мають аналогів у європейському мистецтві. Висновки. У мистецтві конструктивізму прикладного періоду предметність стала універсальним принципом (інструментом) моделювання нової реальності – і на художньо-естетичному рівні, і на рівні прагматичному, орієнтованому на перебудову утилітарного середовища. Концепції виробничого мистецтва, народжені революційною добою, поклали в основу – і в ідейно-теоретичному, і в художньо-практичному плані – фундамент для майбутнього дизайну й багато в чому визначили майбутні шляхи художнього розвитку.

Судьба картины А.А. Пластова «Ужин трактористов» (1951)

Статья посвящена одному из самых замечательных произведений советской эпохи – картине выдающегося советского художника Аркадия Александровича Пластова «Ужин трактористов» (1951 года), которая с 1952 года хранится в Иркутском областном художественном музее имени В.П. Сукачева. Судьба этой картины складывалась драматично. В сталинское время она была подвергнута критике как не соответствующая идейным канонам социалистического реализма и, отвергнутая столичными музеями, оказалась в собрании Иркутского областного художественного музея. Ее триумф пришелся на времена хрущевской «оттепели», когда картина прославилась не только на выставках в нашей стране, но и далеко за рубежом. Возросшая оценка живописного полотна стала причиной претензий на него со стороны Третьяковской галереи. Сотрудникам сибирского музея удалось вернуть картину в свою коллекцию. А для Государственной Третьяковской галереи А.А. Пластов в 1961 г. создал ее повторение. На основе документов автор статьи опровергает возникшие в искусствоведческой литературе неточности в толковании судьбы этой картины. The article is about one of the most remarkable works of the Soviet epoch – the painting “Dinner of Tractorists” (1951) by the outstanding Soviet artist Arkady Plastov. This painting is kept in the Sukachev Irkutsk Regional Art Museum. The fate of this picture was dramatic. In Stalin's time, it was criticized as not corresponding to the ideological canons of socialist realism and, rejected by the capital's museums, ended up in the collection of the Irkutsk Regional Art Museum. The triumph for the painting came in the mid-1950s – 1960s, when it became famous not only at Russian exhibitions, but also far abroad. The increased appreciation of the painting became the reason for pretension on it from the Tretyakov Gallery. The staff of the Irkutsk museum managed to return the painting to its collection. And Arkady Plastov created the replay for the State Tretyakov Gallery in 1961. Based on the documents, the author of the article refutes the inaccuracies in the interpretation of the fate of this picture that arose in the literature of art history.

Soviet artist as a participant in the state funeral ritual of the 1920–1950s

Throughout the 1920–1950s Selected Soviet artists were regular participants in state funeral ceremonies. In this article, for the first time, the process of including artists in a funeral ritual and investing them with a specific role in the performance of thanatological practices on a national scale is investigated. The stereotypes of behavior of those who were "honored" to be invited to the tomb of the leader, their emotional reactions, the nature of the work performed during the funeral ritual, are considered as components of the formation of a special semiotic space.

THE STATE OF THE SOVIET FILM INDUSTRY IN THE 1930s

Soviet cinema of the 1930s has long been of particular interest for historians from Russia and abroad. For a long time in historiography, the Soviet art of the 1930s has been associated with the Soviet ideology and propaganda of the stated
 period. This topic was considered by the outstanding historians such as David Brandenberg, Boris Ilzarov, Yevgeny Gromov, Alexander Dubrovsky, Katerina Clark, etc.
 At the same time, in the studies on this topic, as a rule, focuses is made on the formation of Russian national ideology in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. In the center of historical research there are literature and cinema cultivating Russian
 national historical heroes. Besides, cinema comes to prominence in the 1930s. However, in historiography the state of the Soviet film industry in the proposed period is very poorly covered.
 This paper discusses the state of the Soviet film industry in the 1930s. Based on archival materials of the Main Department of Film Affairs, on the paperwork related to the development of the film industry, as well as memoirs of contemporaries,
 the author assesses the state of the Soviet film industry at the turn of the 1920s–1930s, as well as traces the development of the film industry in the 1930s. The author highlights
 the most significant problems of the Soviet cinema of the 1930s, as well as the main projects for solving these problems. Thus, this study makes it possible to assess the state and production capacity of the Soviet film industry in the 1930s.

Dmitry Shostakovich by Fairclough Pauline (review)

SEER, 98, 2, APRIL 2020 366 istinnaia pravda. The word dolzhen can also be problematic. I sometimes felt (e.g., on p. 213) that it would have been better to translate it as ‘should’ or ‘ought to’, rather than ‘must’. For those who will not have the time to read the whole text, I should mention that the Subject Index is particularly well done. Some readers will find it comforting and reassuring that the author concludes Part 3 with the assertion that ‘[o]ne cannot transcend Westernism, since Westernism itself means the continuity of self-transcendence’ (p. 173). University of Glasgow Martin Dewhirst Fairclough, Pauline. Dmitry Shostakovich. Critical Lives. Reaktion Books, London, 2019. 191 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Select bibliography. £11.99 (paperback). This is a sensible and insightful book. Much of Shostakovich’s reception has been distracted by political agendas wielded both for and against the man and his works, and interpretation of the music has often been a fraught affair played for high stakes. Pauline Fairclough deals with these ‘Shostakovich Wars’ (p. 9) calmly and judiciously, without attempting to resolve ‘his divided existence’ (p. 177) in favour of either his public or private side. She also, to the relief to the general reader doggedly interested in the composer and his music, deals with them quickly, passing over the musicological intricacies of, for example, the Volkov case in order to open up spaces in which the music can be heard for what it was, is, and might be worth. There is much to be gained from this slim volume, and hardly any theoretical weight to slow down the general reader (the occasional mention of ostranenie (p. 152) and other culturally appropriate terms). Aside from the programme notes on individual works, which consist of the sorts of explications that the general reader might desire (the string quartets are treated to some wonderful interpretative prose), the book also includes genuinely new archival material, in the form of a complete letter written by the composer in 1949 about a potential trip to New York (pp. 96–97). Shostakovich’s film music is given space alongside his concert music, all the better for the book’s portrait of the composer as a Soviet artist. There is ample attention devoted to Shostakovich’s personal life, and especially his important friendship with Sollertinskii, not as a vulgar interpretative cipher, but simply as another register in which our understanding of the composer needs to dwell. There is also a fair amount of discussion, mostly at the ends of the book, but also scattered throughout, of what we might make of the composer’s music in our currently political, financial and cultural contexts; one question concerns the music’s understandable popularity and whether that itself poses an obstacle REVIEWS 367 to our fuller understanding. Fairclough’s own desire is ‘to challenge the idea, still commonly held, that Shostakovich’s music is depressing, and that he himself was a broken man at the end of his life’ (p. 11). In this respect, Dmitry Shostakovich is a success, for by the end the general reader emerges with a clear picture about the composer’s status within Soviet society in the 1960s and early 1970s: for example, his marriage in 1962, his slow rise within the Communist Party, the studied ambiguity — ‘so oblique as to be invisible’ (p. 136) — of his public position under Brezhnev, the profoundly brave decision to set certain texts, the diagnosis of lung cancer in 1972 (p. 156), and so on. In the final couple of chapters, some of the works are interpreted in terms of a return home full circle (p. 168), a kind of symbolic closure that perhaps seduces biographers more than listeners. There are some interesting and tantalizing references over the course of the booktowritersandcomposerswithoutwhomShostakovichwouldhavebecome a wholly different artist. Of the musicians, one encounters time and again the interventions that Mahler made in his life (e.g. pp. 30, 54, 170). With additional space, it would have been useful to dwell on this epic figure, considering the ways in which Shostakovich’s heteroglossia (including allusions both to specific music and to generic gestures and archetypes) is found ‘not just in an opera’s message...

FROM THE HISTORY OF THE UNION OF ARTISTS OF KAZAKHSTAN

The Union of Soviet Artists of Kazakhstan was created in 1933. He is one of the first allies in the republic as a public organization uniting the Union of Artists of Kazakhstan, artists and artists. The Union promotes the creation of works of high artistic level of its members and the constant development of professional skills. The management body and Executive body of the Board held 12 congresses. The artists justified the national style and style, embodying the spirit of the time. The theme of the socialist realist system is shown in his works. The art school continued its work with many difficulties in 1937 and 1938, gradually becoming the basis of the first special art school.The article will describe the first stage of the creation of the Union of Artists of Kazakhstan. Downloads pdf (Русский) How to Cite Ашимжан , Н. 2021. FROM THE HISTORY OF THE UNION OF ARTISTS OF KAZAKHSTAN. BULLETIN Series «Historical and socio-political sciences». 1, 64 (May 2021). More Citation Formats Issue Vol. 1 No. 64 (2020): Series «Historical and socio-political sciences» Section RESEARCH OF YOUNG SCIENTISTS Language

Soviet engravings and the Chinese writer Lu Xun

This article analyzes the relations between the Chinese writer Lu Xun and Soviet engravings. Lu Xun is attributed to one of the most prominent Chinese literary figures of the past century. His significant contribution to the development of culture also consists in the fact that in the 1930’s he collected, edited and published a substantial amount of Soviet engravings. This is why his is known in China as the “Founder of the collection of wood engravings”. The article represents an cross-disciplinary research in the field of art history, culturology and literature, particular in the area of history of Soviet art and Chinese literature. The research elucidates the key milestones of life path of Lu Xun, associated with the increase of cultural level of Chinese young students through familiarization of majority of the population with Soviet engraving. However, his relations with the Soviet art, and namely Soviet engraving, are insufficiently covered. The article talks about the forgotten achievements in the area of Soviet arts in China.

Introduction to “A Conversation between Chinese Artists and Mexican Painter David Alfaro Siqueiros”

Abstract In October 1956, the Mexican muralist David Siqueiros traveled Beijing and engaged in two dialogues with artists from the Chinese Artists’ Association. His visit came at an inflection point in China’s foreign and cultural policy. As Sino-Soviet relations deteriorated, China used cultural diplomacy to cultivate relationships with unaligned countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. China’s cultural policy mirrored this shift by relaxing its adherence to Soviet-style Socialist Realism and promoting new stylistic practices, including a revival of ink painting techniques. This policy shift re-animated a debate among Chinese artists over the best mode of representation for socialist art, with one side arguing that Soviet-style Socialist Realism was the only acceptable style, and the other advocating for the reform of Chinese ink painting techniques. Within this context, Siqueiros’s criticism of Soviet artists and his advice to follow Chinese stylistic traditions set off a rich discussion on new approaches to Socialist Realism within China.