SOCIALIST REALISM IN THE PERIODICAL 'LITERATURE AND ART'. THEORETICAL BASIS OF ART CRITICISM IN THE SOVIET TIME (Socialistiskais realisms laikraksta 'Literatura un Maksla'. Padomju perioda makslas kritikas teoretiskie pamati)

This article aims to elucidate the evolution of Socialist Realism, the central art-theoretical term of the period 1945-1980, as it appears in the weekly periodical 'Literatura un Maksla' ('Literature and Art', 1945-1990). The doctrine of Socialist Realism was proclaimed as the only permitted one during the All-Soviet Union Writers' Congress in 1934 and inculcated in the newly occupied territories, including Latvia, after 1945. It can be partly interpreted as a continuation of the old European traditions in art theory. 19th-century Realism was one of the central building-blocks of this doctrine but one should note also the very idea of art as a theoretically grounded activity that has to represent reality. As the ancient theory of art as representation did never mean precise copying but a kind of idealisation that became heavily dependant on classical models studied in European art academies, the doctrine of Socialist Realism inherited this basic idea of academic theory that art can be taught and artists' professional skill is essential. The most paradoxical conclusion to be drawn from this study - critics had no other criteria, except their intuition and feeling, to decide whether an artwork is 'right' or 'wrong' from the viewpoint of Socialist Realism. Nobody, of course, has been able to explain, when and how exactly an innovative feature that might enrich Socialist Realism turns into contestable deviation from its supposedly 'objective', 'professional', 'ideologically true' course. It is possible to assume that the ongoing extension of the notion of Socialist Realism was a simple reaction to the evolution of artistic practice. At the same time, it is not provable that situation in art forced to expand the notion's boundaries against the authors' true conviction. The term of Socialist Realism can be surely metaphorically compared to an empty shell whose ever-changing content deserves to be studied in the wider context of Western art-theoretical thought.