23 Facts About Socialist realism

Socialist realism is a style of idealized realistic art that was developed in the Soviet Union and was the official style in that country between 1932 and 1988, as well as in other socialist countries after World War II.

Socialist realism is characterized by the depiction of communist values, such as the emancipation of the proletariat.

Socialist realism was made with an extremely literal and obvious meaning, usually showing an idealized USSR.

Socialist realism was usually devoid of complex artistic meaning or interpretation.

Socialist realism was the predominant form of approved art in the Soviet Union from its development in the early 1920s to its eventual fall from official status beginning in the late 1960s until the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Related searches

Socialist realism was developed by many thousands of artists, across a diverse society, over several decades.

Socialist realism believed that "the sight of a healthy body, intelligent face or friendly smile was essentially life-enhancing.

Purpose of socialist realism was to limit popular culture to a specific, highly regulated faction of emotional expression that promoted Soviet ideals.

Common images used in socialist realism were flowers, sunlight, the body, youth, flight, industry, and new technology.

Socialist realism compelled artists of all forms to create positive or uplifting reflections of socialist utopian life by utilizing any visual media, such as posters, movies, newspapers, theater and radio, beginning during the Communist Revolution of 1917 and escalating during the reign of Josef Stalin until the early 1980s.

Term Socialist Realism was proclaimed in 1934 at the Soviet Writer's congress, although it was left not precisely defined.

Socialist realism believed that artists should not be constrained and should be allowed to live by their creative talents.

Socialist realism was a founder of a new style of revolutionary song for the masses.

Socialist realism composed works in larger forms such as Requiem for Lenin.

Socialist realism excelled in landscapes and social realism, and held many exhibitions.

Socialist realism published two books of documentary prose, The Communist Man.

Socialist realism was, to some extent, a reaction against the adoption of these "decadent" styles.

Socialist realism became state policy in 1934 when the First Congress of Soviet Writers met and Stalin's representative Andrei Zhdanov gave a speech strongly endorsing it as "the official style of Soviet culture".

Mikhail Gorbachev's policies of glasnost and perestroika facilitated an explosion of interest in alternative art styles in the late 1980s, but socialist realism remained in limited force as the official state art style until as late as 1991.

Socialist realism had little mainstream impact in the non-Communist world, where it was widely seen as a totalitarian means of imposing state control on artists.

Former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was an important exception among the communist countries, because after the Tito–Stalin split in 1948, it abandoned socialist realism along with other elements previously imported from the Soviet system and allowed greater artistic freedom.

Socialist realism was the main art current in the People's Socialist Republic of Albania.

Style of socialist realism began to dominate the Soviet artistic community starting when Stalin rose to power in 1930, and the government took a more active role in regulating art creation.