ABSTRACT

Socialist Realism has returned to the forefront of debate in Russia, where the discourse is polarized by nostalgic celebrations of art created under Stalin in blockbuster exhibitions such as Romantic Realism (2015) and Aleksandr Gerasimov (2016), and the need for new critical reinterpretation of the cultural and historical context of its production. In the face of official patronage of Soviet heritage by the current political regime, the art historian is faced with the urgent need to rethink existing models of interpretation of artworks created in Stalinist Russia between the 1930s and 1950s. The binary representation of the art historical narrative of this period, which presents the artistic production as a battle between modernism and realism requires revision. This chapter sets out new approaches to thinking and writing about socialist realism both from within and outside of Russia. The chapter centers on a series of debates held at the Moscow Union of Artists (MOSKh) following the conference on Soviet portraiture in 1935, with the aim of placing the artist back under the spotlight. The unpublished transcripts of these debates provide an opportunity to reassess the shifting role of the artist as citizen and creator, critic and censor, victim and villain in the construction and articulation of socialist realism.