ABSTRACT
SocialistRealism,however,isagrandiosemetanarrative,legitimizingabsolutelyallspheresofspiritualandpracticalactivity.Jean-FrancoisLyotard claimsthatStalinismwasfoundedontheabsorptionofbothfundamental formsofnarrativelegitimation:Partyideologysubordinatedtheinstitutions ofbothknowledge(science)andpower(thestate)(Lyotard1984:36-37).At thesametime,totalitarianism,whichwouldappeartobethepolaropposite ofclassicalculture,persistentlyreworkedtheclassicaltradition,creatingits owncanon,itsownPushkin,Gogol,Lermontov,andTolstoy(seeFreidberg 1962).Moreover,totalitariancultureparadoxicallycontinuedtheinherent featuresofmodernismandtheavant-garde,reproducingtheminahyperbolic form.ThusBorisGroyscallsthesocialiststate"atotalworkofart,"perhaps evenexaggeratingthecontinuitybetweenavant-gardeandtotalitariancultureinhisTotalArtofStalinism:
We have already mentioned Mikhail Epstein's model, 1 which sees postmodernism as resulting from the ideological simulacra of Socialist Realism that produce a fictional reality. But we should recall that there can be no talk of postmodernism and the postmodern condition until there is a recognition of the simulative nature of the cultural and historical context. Just how does the realization of total simulation, so central to totalitarian culture, occur in the literature of the sixties, and how is it reflected in postmodern fiction? Andrei Bitov's novel Pushkin House (1964-71) provides the perfect opportunity to address these questions. Bitov's most important achievement in Pushkin House is the exposure of the simulative character of the Soviet m~ntality and Soviet culture long before Baudrillard and his followers; that is, he draws the reader's attention to the primacy of imaginary constructs, of images without real referents, of copies without originals. It is in Pushkin House that this radical transformation is first established, the transformation that is perhaps the most important consequence of the Thaw. It is the beginning ofpostmodernist time.
