Abstract: Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1 Russian State Archive of Contemporary History (henceforth RGANI), f 5, op 17, d 543, l 102 (letter from Presidium of Academy of Arts, A Gerasimov, to CC CPSU, 10 March 1955). This research was supported by the British Council and the British Academy. I am indebted to Aleksandr Vatlin for his assistance. All translations of the Russian archival material are mine unless otherwise stated. 2 Ibid, ll 14–15. The review took place on 25 January 1955 in Moscow's Central House of Art Workers. 3 Ibid. For a biography of Aleksandr Gerasimov see Matthew Cullerne Bown, 'Aleksandr Gerasimov', in Art of the Soviets, ed M Cullerne Bown and Brandon Taylor, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1993, pp 121–139. 4 RGANI, f 5, op 17, d 498, ll 97–98 5 Ibid, l 98 6 Werner G Hahn, Postwar Soviet Politics: The Fall of Zhdanov and the Defeat of Moderation, 1946–1953, Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 1982, pp 150–156; Robert Service, 'De‐Stalinisation in the USSR Before Khrushchev's Secret Speech', in Il XX Congresso del PCUS, ed Francesca Gori, Milan, 1988, pp 287–310; Harold Swayze, Political Control of Literature in the USSR, 1946–1959, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1962, chapter 2; Maria Zezina, 'Crisis in the Union of Soviet Writers in the early 1950s', Europe‐Asia Studies, 46: 4, 1994, pp 649–661; Dina Spechler, Permitted Dissent in the USSR: Novyi mir and the Soviet Regime, Praeger, New York, 1982; Vera Tolz, '"Cultural Bosses" as Patrons and Clients: the Functioning of the Soviet Creative Unions in the Postwar Period,' Contemporary European History, 11:1, 2002, pp 87–105. 7 See Stephen F Cohen, 'The Friends and Foes of Change: Reformism and Conservatism in the Soviet Union,' in The Soviet Union Since Stalin, eds Stephen F Cohen, Alexander Rabinowitch and Robert Sharlet, Bloomington, Indiana, 1980, pp 11–12; Peter Hauslohner, 'Politics Before Gorbachev: De‐Stalinization and the Roots of Reform', in The Soviet System in Crisis, eds Alexander Dallin and Gail W Lapidus, Boulder, Colorado, 1991, pp 37–63 8 For details see Susan Reid, 'All Stalin's Women: Gender and Power in Soviet Art of the 1930s', Slavic Review, 57:1, 1998, pp 133–173; and Reid, 'Socialist Realism in the Stalinist Terror', Russian Review, 60:2, 2001, pp 153–184. 9 RGANI, f 5, op 17, d 543, ll 156–159 10 RGANI, f 5, op 17, d 498, l 38 11 RGANI, f 5, op 17, d 498, l 38; RGANI, f 5, op 37, d 70, l 41 12 Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (henceforth RGALI), f 2943, op 1, d 1039, l 57 13 W Lacqueur and George Lichtheim, eds, The Soviet Cultural Scene 1956–1957, Atlantic Books, London, 1958, pp 202–204; A Kassof, The Soviet Youth Program, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass, 1965, p 2; Elena Zubkova, Obshchestvo i reformy 1945–1964, Rossiia molodaia, Moscow, 1993, pp 154–155 14 RGANI, f 5, op 17, d 498, l 99 15 Ibid, ll 96–97 16 Ibid, l 96 17 Jack Chen, Soviet Art and Artists, Pilot Press, London, 1944; 'The Artist as a Worker for the State: Interview with Prof Andrei Melnikov by Rockwell Kent', Art News, December 1958, p 62 18 RGANI, f 5, op 37, d 70, l 42 19 RGALI, f 2943, op 1, ed khr 1039, ll 40–41 20 RGALI, f 2943, op 2, d 14, l 28. For a fuller account see Susan Reid, 'De‐Stalinisation in the Moscow Art Profession', in Regime and Society in Twentieth‐Century Russia, ed Ian Thatcher, Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1999, especially pp 164–167. 21 Nikolai Andronov, Nataliia Egorshina, interview with the author, Moscow, November 1998 22 RGANI, f 5, op 36, d 74, l 46 23 RGALI, f 2943, op 1, ed khr 173, l 22; RGALI, f 2943, op 1, ed khr 1163; N Nikolaev, 'Kontraktatsiia khudozhnikov 1935 g', Tvorchestvo, 1936, no 7, pp 6–19. A similar system was run by 'kombinaty' or firms run by the Art Fund, the financial arm of the Artists' Unions. Around 85 percent of all artistic production was created by firms of the Art Fund. 24 RGANI, f 5, op 17, d 498, ll 22–23, 36–37 25 Ibid, l 38 26 RGANI, f 5, op 36, d 74, ll 46–50 27 See Susan Reid, 'Destalinization and the Remodernization of Soviet Art', PhD, University of Pennsylvania, 1996. 28 RGANI, f 5, op 17, d 498, l 37 29 'Bol'she vnimaniia molodym zodchim', Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 14 February 1953 30 'O porochnoi praktike v raspredelenii khudozhestvennykh fondov', Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 14 February 1953 31 'Za novyi pod'em izobrazitel'nogo iskusstva', Pravda, 22 November 1954 32 RGANI, f 5, op 37, d 70, l 41. See Spechler, Permitted Dissent, op cit, pp 4–13 33 RGANI, f 5, op 37, d 70, l 41 34 Ibid. These problems continued throughout the 1950s as the 1959 complaints indicate. 35 Ibid 36 'Za novyi pod'em', op cit 37 Ernst Neizvestnyi, Govorit Neizvestnyi, Posev, Frankfurt‐am‐Main, 1984, pp 90–91 38 RGANI, f 5, op 17, d 447, ll 45–46 39 Compare Karl Qualls, 'Accommodation and Agitation in Sevastopol', in Socialist Spaces: Sites of Everyday Life in the Eastern Bloc, eds David Crowley and Susan Reid, Berg, Oxford, 2002, pp 23–46 40 RGANI, f 5, op 17, d 447, ll 45–53 41 Neizvestnyi, Govorit Neizvestnyi, op cit, p 86 42 For details, see Reid, 'Socialist Realism in the Stalinist Terror', op cit, pp 153–184 43 See Ekaterina Zernova, Vospominaniia monumentalista, Moscow, 1985, pp 85–87; and Reid, 'All Stalin's Women', op cit, p 164 44 'Za novyi pod'em', op cit 45 RGANI, f 5, op 17, d 498, ll 96, 145; Vladimir Kostin, 'Kto tam shagaet pravoi?', reprinted in Naedine s sovest'iu, compiled by Grigorii Anisimov, Musaget, Moscow, 2002, pp 186–210 46 See Reid, 'Socialist Realism in the Stalinist Terror', op cit. For the ways in which the establishment of Socialist Realism and its hierarchies impacted on women artists in particular, see Reid, 'All Stalin's Women', op cit. 47 RGANI, f 5, op 17, d 498, l 37 48 RGANI, f 5, op 37, d 70, l 41 49 RGANI, f 5, op 36, d 74, l 45 50 RGANI, f 5, op 36, d 498, l 75 51 For example, the so‐called Group of Eight (Nine). See Igor Golomshtok and Alexander Glezer, Soviet Art in Exile, Random House, New York, 1977; Reid, 'Destalinization and the Remodernization of Soviet Art', op cit 52 Boris Ioganson, 'Vsesoiuznaia khudozhestvennaia vystavka 1954 goda. Vsesoiuznyi smotr', Iskusstvo, 1955, no 2, p 6. The exhibition was held in the State Tretyakov Gallery for want of a dedicated venue for special exhibitions – another source of discontent in the art world of the fifties. 53 Ibid, p 6 54 Aleksandr Kamenskii, 'Tema i obraz', Iskusstvo, 1955, no 2, pp 11–19 55 RGANI, f 5, op 17, d 543, l 8 56 Ibid, ll 6–7 57 Ibid, ll 12–13 58 A Kamenskii, 'Razmyshlenie u poloten sovetskikh khudozhnikov', Novyi mir, 1956, no 7, pp 190–203
Publication Year: 2006
Publication Date: 2006-03-01
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