Socialist Realism

Socialist realism was a creative method used in art and literature. This method was considered an aesthetic expression of a certain concept. This concept was associated with the period of struggle for the building of a socialist society.

This creative method was considered the main artistic direction in the USSR. Realism in Russia proclaimed a true representation of reality against the backdrop of its revolutionary development.

The founder of the method in the literature is M. Gorky. It was he who in 1934 at the First Congress of Writers of the USSR defined socialist realism as a form that affirms being as an act and creativity whose goal is to continuously develop the most valuable abilities of an individual to ensure his victory over natural forces for the sake of human longevity and health.

Realism, whose philosophy is reflected in Soviet literature, was built in accordance with certain ideological principles. According to the concept, the cultural figure had to follow the peremptory program. Socialist realism was based on glorifying the Soviet system, labor enthusiasm, as well as the revolutionary opposition of the people and leaders.

This creative method was prescribed to all cultural figures of each sphere of art. This put creativity in a fairly rigid framework.

However, some artists of the USSR created original and vivid works, which had universal significance. Only recently was recognized the dignity of a number of socialist realists (Plastov, for example, who wrote scenes from village life).

Literature at that time was an instrument of party ideology. The writer himself was regarded as the "engineer of human souls". With the help of his talent, he had to influence the reader, be a propagandist of ideas. The main task of the writer was the education of the reader in the spirit of the Party and the maintenance of the struggle for building communism with him. Subjective aspirations and actions of personalities of the heroes of all works socialist realism brought into line with objective historical events.

At the center of any work was necessarily to stand only a positive hero. He was an ideal communist, an example for the entire socialist society. In addition, the hero was a progressive man, human doubts were alien to him.

Speaking about the fact that art must be owned by the people, that it is on the feelings, demands and thoughts of the masses that artwork should be based, Lenin specified that literature should be party. Lenin believed that this direction of art is an element of the common proletarian cause, a detail of one great mechanism.

Gorky argued that the main task of socialist realism is to educate the revolutionary view of what is happening, the corresponding perception of the world.

To ensure a strict adherence to the method of creating paintings, the writing of prose and poetry and the like needed to be subordinated to exposing capitalist crimes. At the same time, each work was to praise socialism, inspiring viewers and readers to the revolutionary struggle.

The method of socialist realism covered absolutely all spheres of art: architecture and music, sculpture and painting, cinematography and literature, drama. This method claimed a number of principles.

The first principle - the nationality - was manifested in the fact that the characters in the works were necessarily to come from the people. First of all, these are workers and peasants.

The works were to contain a description of heroic deeds, revolutionary struggle, construction of a bright future.

Another principle was concreteness. It was expressed in the fact that reality was a process of historical development that corresponded to the doctrine of materialism.