A Socialist Realist History

Download or read book A Socialist Realist History? written by Kristina Jõekalda and published by Böhlau Köln. This book was released on 2019-06-17 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did the Eastern European and Soviet states write their respective histories of art and architecture during 1940s–1960s? The articles address both the Stalinist period and the Khrushchev Thaw, when the Marxist-Leninist discourse on art history was "invented" and refined. Although this discourse was inevitably "Sovietized" in a process dictated from Moscow, a variety of distinct interpretations emerged from across the Soviet bloc in the light of local traditions, cultural politics and decisions of individual authors. Even if the new "official" discourse often left space open for national concerns, it also gave rise to a countermovement in response to the aggressive ideologization of art and the preeminence assigned to (Socialist) Realist aesthetics.