Socialist Realism
Andrei Zhdanov
Stalin's hatchet-man for cultural affairs. Zhdanovism was used to describe cultural Stalinism and control of art at its most repressive.
First Five-Year Plan
end of NEP private enterprise
imposition of collective farming
end of freedom & experimentation in the arts
Yevgeny Shvarts
Wrote The Dragon, The Naked King, and The Shadow. Joined the Oberiu group who believed in surrealism, the absurd, and used interesting sound effects. The group was broken up under Stalin. Shvarts wanted tot enlist in WWII but couldn't because of health reasons. The Dragon was banned after one performance until 1962.
900 day blockade
Germany surrounded Leningrad for 900 days, causing many to starve within their own homes. No supplies or food. Shostakovich wrote a symphony about it that was banned in Soviet Union because it showed bad conditions
Aleksandr Valentinovich Vampilov
bork in Kutulik, province of Irkutsk, Siberia
Graduated from University of Irkutsk
wrote Duck Hunting play; premeired in 1978 by Oleg Efremov
drowned in Lake Baikal at age 35
Socialist Realism
Artistic style whose goal was to promote socialism by showing Soviet life in a positive light. Only officially sanctioned approach to art 1934-1989. Showed progressive action, struggle against bourgeois thinking, positive heroes, and conflicts between good and better.
Joseph Stalin
spent 4 years eliminating rivals
1928-1932 created 1st Five year plan
Heavy industry; collective farming; 400,000 landowners killed ; organized artists in worker brigades regimented to conform; invaded fabric designs with propaganda of collective work
Samuel Marshak
publisher and author of children's plays. Shvarts's mentor. "Twelve Months"
Alexei Arbuzov
Wrote for Leningrad Proletcult Theatre and directed agitprop train productions. Wrote "It Happened in Irkutsk" and "My Poor Marat" AKA "The Promise." Wrote about human emotion.
Mikhail Shatrov
wrote 9 plays about Lenin
The Bolsheviks, Onward! Onward! Onward!
Andei Donatovich Sinyavsky
Wrote "On Socialist Realism" easy that attacked official doctrine and led to his imprisonment
Isaac Emmanuilovich Babel
prolific author of short stories; wrote Sunset and Marya;
met Gorky and was given a big break
arrested in 1939 at home and unpublished work seized; memory rehabilitated in 1954
Nikolai Akimov
avant-garde director who successfully transitioned to socialist realism. Directed all of Shvarts plays. Leningrad theatre of comedy. Director/designer of Hamlet at Vakhtangov Theatre in Moscow.
Themes of 1940s plays
-continuing themes
-moral regeneration
-patriotic purpose
-plays about Lenin's life
-some comedy
Mikhail Roshchin
Wrote the plays Valentin and Valentina (opening up to emotions with a 1970's vogue for "youth dramas" ) and Echelon [a.k.a Evacuation Train] (one of first plays done by American theatre
Nikolai Pogodin
Wrote the "Lenin trilogy"
Union of Soviet Writers
replaced the All-Union Association of Proletarian Writers and the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers
adopted the doctrine of Socialist Realism
Serapion Brothers
Group of writers Shvarts worked with, they were a group of writers formed in Petrograd, Russian in 1921
the Thaw
period of Russian history after Stalin's death in 1953 where theatre and literature was given a little more freedom than in previous years. Also, all the Hamlet's were being produced
Oberiuty
Connected with the works of Daniel Kharms; avant-garde collection of futurism art, stories told in an illogical way
Viktor Rozov
Wrote "The Cranes are Flying" which was the first Soviet play to make it to American theatre. Theatre of Revolution style.