Culture of the Soviet Union
Encyclopedia
The Culture of the Soviet Union passed through several stages during the 69 year existence of the Soviet Union
. It was contributed by people of various nationalities from every of 15 union republics, although the majority of them were Russians. The Soviet state supported cultural institutions, but also carried out strict censorship.
At first artists and writers were given a fair amount of freedom but many fled Russia because of their opposition to the Bolshevik government. Lenin was a traditional man in art. He hated the new 'isms' (Futurism
, Expressionism
) and wanted art to be kept to traditional ways, yet he did nothing to discourage the spread of Futurism in Russia. Lenin showed his support to the art scene and wanted art to be accessible to the masses. He nationalised many private art collections and created the Museum of New Western Art in Moscow. Lenin wanted at the beginning to have full control of the art system and he appointed Izo-Narkompros to take control. The proletkult
movement soon sprung up after the February Revolution
. Its members wanted to make art more sympathetic to the masses and to encourage more participation in the arts. Many new art studios were set up in many cities. Its movement was progressive and its members pro-revolutionary.
In many respects, the NEP
period was a time of relative freedom and experimentation for the social and cultural life of the Soviet Union. The government tolerated a variety of trends in these fields, provided they were not overtly hostile to the regime. In art and literature, numerous schools, some traditional and others radically experimental, proliferated. Communist writers Maxim Gorky
and Vladimir Mayakovsky
were active during this time, but other authors, many of whose works were later repressed, published work lacking socialist political content. Film, as a means of influencing a largely illiterate society, received encouragement from the state; much of cinematographer Sergei Eisenstein
's best work dates from this period.
Education, under Commissar Anatoliy Lunacharskiy, entered a phase of experimentation based on progressive theories of learning. At the same time, the state expanded the primary and secondary school system and introduced night schools for working adults. The quality of higher education suffered, however, because admissions policies preferred entrants from the proletarian class over those of bourgeois backgrounds, regardless of the applicants' qualifications.
Under NEP the state eased its active persecution of religion begun during war communism
but continued to agitate on behalf of atheism. The party supported the Living Church reform movement within the Russian Orthodox Church in hopes that it would undermine faith in the church, but the movement died out in the late 1920s.
In family life, attitudes generally became more permissive. The state legalized abortion
, and it made divorce progressively easier to obtain. In general, traditional attitudes toward such institutions as marriage
were slowly changed by the party's promotion of revolutionary ideals.
were characterised by the rise and domination of the government-imposed style of Socialist realism
, with all other trends being severely repressed, with rare exceptions (e.g., many notable Mikhail Bulgakov
's works - however the full text of his The Master and Margarita
was published only in 1966). Many writers were imprisoned and killed or died of starvation, examples being, Osip Mandelstam
, Isaac Babel
and Boris Pilnyak
. Andrei Platonov
worked as a caretaker and wasn't allowed to publish. The work of Anna Akhmatova
was also condemned by the regime, although she notably refused the opportunity to escape to the West. After a short period of the renaissance of the Ukrainian literature more than 250 Soviet Ukrainian writers died during the Great Purge
(e.g. Valeran Pidmohyl'nyi (1901–1937)) (so called The Executed Renaissance). Texts of imprisoned authors were confiscated by the NKVD
and some of them were published later. Books were removed from libraries and destroyed.
In addition to literature, musical expression was also repressed during the Stalin era, and at times the music of many Soviet composers was banned altogether. Dmitri Shostakovich
experienced a particularly long and complex relationship with Stalin
, during which his music was denounced and prohibited twice, in 1936 and 1948 (see Zhdanov decree). Sergei Prokofiev
and Aram Khachaturian
had similar cases. Although Igor Stravinsky
did not live in the Union, his music was officially considered formalist and anti-Soviet.
craze.
In arts, the liberalisation of all aspects of life starting from the Khrushchev Thaw
created a possibility for the evolution of various forms of non-formal, underground and dissident art; still repressed, but no longer under the immediate threat of Gulag
labor camps. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who wrote the critical One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature
and subsequently exiled from the Soviet Union.
Greater experimentation in art forms became permissible in the 1970s, with the result that more sophisticated and subtly critical work began to be produced. The regime loosened the strictures of socialist realism
; thus, for instance, many protagonists of the novels of author Iurii Trifonov concerned themselves with problems of daily life rather than with building socialism. In music, although the state continued to frown on such Western phenomena as jazz
and rock
, it began to permit Western musical ensembles specializing in these genres to make limited appearances. But the native balladeer Vladimir Vysotsky
, widely popular in the Soviet Union, was denied official recognition because of his iconoclastic lyrics.
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. It was contributed by people of various nationalities from every of 15 union republics, although the majority of them were Russians. The Soviet state supported cultural institutions, but also carried out strict censorship.
The Lenin years
The main feature of communist attitudes towards the arts and artists in the years 1918-1929 was relative freedom and significant experimentation with several different styles in an effort to find a distinctive Soviet style of art.At first artists and writers were given a fair amount of freedom but many fled Russia because of their opposition to the Bolshevik government. Lenin was a traditional man in art. He hated the new 'isms' (Futurism
Futurism (art)
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane and the industrial city...
, Expressionism
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
) and wanted art to be kept to traditional ways, yet he did nothing to discourage the spread of Futurism in Russia. Lenin showed his support to the art scene and wanted art to be accessible to the masses. He nationalised many private art collections and created the Museum of New Western Art in Moscow. Lenin wanted at the beginning to have full control of the art system and he appointed Izo-Narkompros to take control. The proletkult
Proletkult
Proletkult was movement which arose in the Russian revolution and was active from 1917 to 1925 which aspired to provide the foundations for what was intended to be a truly proletarian art devoid of bourgeois influence.The name is a portmanteau of "proletarskaya kultura" , which are better-known as...
movement soon sprung up after the February Revolution
February Revolution
The February Revolution of 1917 was the first of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. Centered around the then capital Petrograd in March . Its immediate result was the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, the end of the Romanov dynasty, and the end of the Russian Empire...
. Its members wanted to make art more sympathetic to the masses and to encourage more participation in the arts. Many new art studios were set up in many cities. Its movement was progressive and its members pro-revolutionary.
In many respects, the NEP
New Economic Policy
The New Economic Policy was an economic policy proposed by Vladimir Lenin, who called it state capitalism. Allowing some private ventures, the NEP allowed small animal businesses or smoke shops, for instance, to reopen for private profit while the state continued to control banks, foreign trade,...
period was a time of relative freedom and experimentation for the social and cultural life of the Soviet Union. The government tolerated a variety of trends in these fields, provided they were not overtly hostile to the regime. In art and literature, numerous schools, some traditional and others radically experimental, proliferated. Communist writers Maxim Gorky
Maxim Gorky
Alexei Maximovich Peshkov , primarily known as Maxim Gorky , was a Russian and Soviet author, a founder of the Socialist Realism literary method and a political activist.-Early years:...
and Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was a Russian and Soviet poet and playwright, among the foremost representatives of early-20th century Russian Futurism.- Early life :...
were active during this time, but other authors, many of whose works were later repressed, published work lacking socialist political content. Film, as a means of influencing a largely illiterate society, received encouragement from the state; much of cinematographer Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage"...
's best work dates from this period.
Education, under Commissar Anatoliy Lunacharskiy, entered a phase of experimentation based on progressive theories of learning. At the same time, the state expanded the primary and secondary school system and introduced night schools for working adults. The quality of higher education suffered, however, because admissions policies preferred entrants from the proletarian class over those of bourgeois backgrounds, regardless of the applicants' qualifications.
Under NEP the state eased its active persecution of religion begun during war communism
War communism
War communism or military communism was the economic and political system that existed in Soviet Russia during the Russian Civil War, from 1918 to 1921...
but continued to agitate on behalf of atheism. The party supported the Living Church reform movement within the Russian Orthodox Church in hopes that it would undermine faith in the church, but the movement died out in the late 1920s.
In family life, attitudes generally became more permissive. The state legalized abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
, and it made divorce progressively easier to obtain. In general, traditional attitudes toward such institutions as marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
were slowly changed by the party's promotion of revolutionary ideals.
Stalin era
Arts during the rule of Joseph StalinJoseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
were characterised by the rise and domination of the government-imposed style of Socialist realism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
, with all other trends being severely repressed, with rare exceptions (e.g., many notable Mikhail Bulgakov
Mikhail Bulgakov
Mikhaíl Afanásyevich Bulgákov was a Soviet Russian writer and playwright active in the first half of the 20th century. He is best known for his novel The Master and Margarita, which The Times of London has called one of the masterpieces of the 20th century.-Biography:Mikhail Bulgakov was born on...
's works - however the full text of his The Master and Margarita
The Master and Margarita
The Master and Margarita is a novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, woven around the premise of a visit by the Devil to the fervently atheistic Soviet Union. Many critics consider the book to be one of the greatest novels of the 20th century, and one of the foremost Soviet satires, directed against a...
was published only in 1966). Many writers were imprisoned and killed or died of starvation, examples being, Osip Mandelstam
Osip Mandelstam
Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam was a Russian poet and essayist who lived in Russia during and after its revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union. He was one of the foremost members of the Acmeist school of poets...
, Isaac Babel
Isaac Babel
Isaak Emmanuilovich Babel was a Russian language journalist, playwright, literary translator, and short story writer. He is best known as the author of Red Cavalry, Story of My Dovecote, and Tales of Odessa, all of which are considered masterpieces of Russian literature...
and Boris Pilnyak
Boris Pilnyak
Boris Pilnyak was a Russian author. Born Boris Andreyevich Vogau in Mozhaysk, he was a major supporter of anti-urbanism and a critic of mechanized society. These views often brought him into disfavor with Communist critics...
. Andrei Platonov
Andrei Platonov
Andrei Platonov was the pen name of Andrei Platonovich Klimentov , a Soviet author whose works anticipate existentialism. Although Platonov was a Communist, his works were banned in his own lifetime for their skeptical attitude toward collectivization and other Stalinist policies...
worked as a caretaker and wasn't allowed to publish. The work of Anna Akhmatova
Anna Akhmatova
Anna Andreyevna Gorenko , better known by the pen name Anna Akhmatova , was a Russian and Soviet modernist poet, one of the most acclaimed writers in the Russian canon.Harrington p11...
was also condemned by the regime, although she notably refused the opportunity to escape to the West. After a short period of the renaissance of the Ukrainian literature more than 250 Soviet Ukrainian writers died during the Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
(e.g. Valeran Pidmohyl'nyi (1901–1937)) (so called The Executed Renaissance). Texts of imprisoned authors were confiscated by the NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
and some of them were published later. Books were removed from libraries and destroyed.
In addition to literature, musical expression was also repressed during the Stalin era, and at times the music of many Soviet composers was banned altogether. Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
experienced a particularly long and complex relationship with Stalin
Relationship between Dmitri Shostakovich and Joseph Stalin
The relationship between Dmitri Shostakovich and Joseph Stalin was among the most controversial of the Soviet government's relationships with contemporary artists. The style of Shostakovich's composition often did not comply with Stalin's view of "correct Soviet form"; this led to great tensions...
, during which his music was denounced and prohibited twice, in 1936 and 1948 (see Zhdanov decree). Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...
and Aram Khachaturian
Aram Khachaturian
Aram Ilyich Khachaturian was a prominent Soviet composer. Khachaturian's works were often influenced by classical Russian music and Armenian folk music...
had similar cases. Although Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
did not live in the Union, his music was officially considered formalist and anti-Soviet.
Late Soviet Union
In the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, the Brezhnev era, a distinctive period of Soviet culture developed characterized by conformist public life and intense focus on personal life. In the late Soviet Union Soviet popular culture was characterized by fascination with American popular culture as exemplified by the blue jeansBlue Jeans
"Blue Jeans" is a sentimental popular song written by Harry D. Kerr and Lou Traveller in 1920. In the song, the singer is reminiscing about a long-ago young love that happened somewhere in the "hills of the old Cumberland." The chorus echoes the singer's longing:* The Parlor Songs Collection.* by...
craze.
In arts, the liberalisation of all aspects of life starting from the Khrushchev Thaw
Khrushchev Thaw
The Khrushchev Thaw refers to the period from the mid 1950s to the early 1960s, when repression and censorship in the Soviet Union were partially reversed and millions of Soviet political prisoners were released from Gulag labor camps, due to Nikita Khrushchev's policies of de-Stalinization and...
created a possibility for the evolution of various forms of non-formal, underground and dissident art; still repressed, but no longer under the immediate threat of Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
labor camps. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who wrote the critical One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a novel written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, first published in November 1962 in the Soviet literary magazine Novy Mir . The story is set in a Soviet labor camp in the 1950s, and describes a single day of an ordinary prisoner, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov...
, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature
Nobel Prize in Literature
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...
and subsequently exiled from the Soviet Union.
Greater experimentation in art forms became permissible in the 1970s, with the result that more sophisticated and subtly critical work began to be produced. The regime loosened the strictures of socialist realism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
; thus, for instance, many protagonists of the novels of author Iurii Trifonov concerned themselves with problems of daily life rather than with building socialism. In music, although the state continued to frown on such Western phenomena as jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and rock
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
, it began to permit Western musical ensembles specializing in these genres to make limited appearances. But the native balladeer Vladimir Vysotsky
Vladimir Vysotsky
Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky was a Soviet singer, songwriter, poet, and actor whose career had an immense and enduring effect on Russian culture. He became widely known for his unique singing style and for his lyrics, which featured social and political commentary in often humorous street...
, widely popular in the Soviet Union, was denied official recognition because of his iconoclastic lyrics.
See also
- Index of Soviet Union-related articles
- State ideology of the Soviet Union
- Soviet musicSoviet musicSoviet music is the music composed and produced in the USSR. It varied in many genres and epochs. Although the majority of it was written by Russians, it was also influenced by various national minorities in the Soviet Republic. The Soviet state supported musical institutions, but also carried out...
- Cinema of the Soviet UnionCinema of the Soviet UnionThe cinema of the Soviet Union, not to be confused with "Cinema of Russia" despite Russian language films being predominant in both genres, includes several film contributions of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union reflecting elements of their pre-Soviet culture, language and history,...
- Censorship in the Soviet UnionCensorship in the Soviet UnionCensorship in the Soviet Union was pervasive and strictly enforced.Censorship was performed in two main directions:*State secrets were handled by Main Administration for Safeguarding State Secrets in the Press was in charge of censoring all publications and broadcasting for state...
- Demographics of the Soviet UnionDemographics of the Soviet UnionAccording to data from the 1989 Soviet census, the population of the Soviet Union was 70% East Slavs, 12% Turkic peoples, and all other ethnic groups below 10%. Alongside the atheist majority of 60% there were sizable minorities of Russian Orthodox followers and Muslims According to data from the...
- Religion in the Soviet UnionReligion in the Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union was the first state to have as an ideological objective the elimination of religion and its replacement with atheism. To that end, the communist regime confiscated religious property, ridiculed religion, harassed believers, and propagated atheism in schools...
- Drug policy of the Soviet UnionDrug policy of the Soviet UnionThe drug policy of the Soviet Union changed little throughout the existence of the state, other than slowly becoming stricter, although some differences in penalties existed in the different Union Republics...
- Culture of BelarusCulture of BelarusThe culture of Belarus is the product of a millennium of development under the impact of a number of diverse factors. These include the physical environment; the ethnographic background of Belarusians ; the paganism of the early settlers and their hosts; Byzantine Christianity as a link to the...
- Culture of Russia
- Culture of UkraineCulture of UkraineUkrainian culture refers to the culture associated with the country of Ukraine and sometimes with ethnic Ukrainians across the globe. It contains elements of other Eastern European cultures as well as some Western European influences. Within Ukraine, there are a number of other ethnic groups with...
- Soviet peopleSoviet peopleSoviet people or Soviet nation was an umbrella demonym for the population of the Soviet Union. Initially used as a nonspecific reference to the Soviet population, it was eventually declared to be a "new historical, social and international unity of people".-Nationality politics in early Soviet...
- Soviet cuisineSoviet cuisinethumb|right|250px|[[Varenyky|Varenyks]] with [[curd]]Soviet cuisine, the common cuisine of the Soviet Union, was formed by the integration of the various national cuisines of the Soviet Union, in the course of the formation of the Soviet people. It is characterized by a limited number of...
- Family in the Soviet UnionFamily in the Soviet UnionThe view of the Soviet family as the basic social unit in society evolved from revolutionary to conservative; the government of the Soviet Union first attempted to weaken the family and then to strengthen it...
- History of Russian animationHistory of Russian animationThe History of Russian animation is very rich, but is so far a nearly unexplored field for Western film theory and history. As most of Russia's production of animation for film|cinema and television was created during Soviet times, it may also be referred to as the History of Soviet...
- List of Russian language novelists
- List of Russian language poets
- List of Russian language playwrights