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Russia 1914–41

Culture, propaganda and the cult of personality

  • 3 things to know
  • AS Unit 2

Overview

Socialist realism, cult of personality and short Course.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

What is socialist realism?

Numbers

When was socialist realism imposed on writers?

Key term

Which writer lent his prestige to the new doctrine?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What is socialist realism?

    Model answer

    Socialist realism was the official artistic doctrine which required art to be simple, optimistic and heroic, showing Soviet life as it was becoming rather than as it was.

  2. 2

    When was socialist realism imposed on writers?

    Model answer

    Socialist realism was proclaimed at the first congress of the Union of Soviet Writers in 1934, and membership of the Union became the condition of being published at all.

  3. 3

    Which writer lent his prestige to the new doctrine?

    Model answer

    Maxim Gorky presided over the writers' congress and gave socialist realism the authority of Russia's most celebrated living author.

  4. 4

    What happened to Shostakovich in 1936?

    Model answer

    An unsigned article in Pravda condemned Shostakovich's opera as muddle instead of music, and the composer withdrew his next symphony rather than risk arrest.

  5. 5

    How was film used by the Stalinist regime?

    Model answer

    Film was treated as the most powerful of all propaganda media, with historical epics presenting earlier Russian rulers as forerunners of Stalin and mobile projectors taking them out to the villages.

  6. 6

    What is meant by the cult of personality?

    Model answer

    The cult of personality was the presentation of Stalin as an all-wise leader and father of the peoples, through statues, portraits, poetry, films and the renaming of cities in his honour.

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