Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-jwnkl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-12T03:29:01.015Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Economic Dimensions of Art in the Stalinist Era: Artists' Cooperatives in the Grip of Ideology and the Plan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Galina Yankovskaya
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this essay Galina Yankovskaya explores the economic aspects of Soviet artistic life, which were often as important as political factors or censorship in determining the formal features and content of art production. Yankovskaya considers a complex of multisided trends: Russian artists' egalitarian imagination, the expectations of a new art audience, and the authorities' intentions. Exploring the confusing history of art institutions (mostly Vsekokhudozhnik, but also the Union of Artists and the Artistic Fund) within the everyday routines of the Soviet planned economy enables Yankovskaya to examine the clash of economic, ideological, and political motives in Stalinist culture and to look at how artists escaped from official ideology or exploited it for their own goals of appearing “busy.” Certain specific practices from this system of art production and distribution, such as the state's financial support as well as regulation of the art market, copyright law, and the mass production of handmade copies, survived into the post-Stalinist period.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 65 , Issue 4 , Winter 2006 , pp. 769 - 791
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

I greatly appreciate the valuable comments and suggestions made by the anonymous reviewers, the editorial board of Slavic Review, and, especially, Diane Koenker. In addition I wish to thank the librarians and the community at the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center at the University of Illinois for the friendly and creative atmosphere that aided my research during my stay there.

1. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstva (RGALI),f. 2717, op. 1, d. 32, 11. 177-78.

2. London, Kurt, The Seven Soviet Arts (London, 1937), 363.Google Scholar

3. For an explanation of the institutional approach, see Guldberg, J., “Artist Well Organized: The Organizational Structure of the Soviet Ait Scene from the Liquidation of Artistic Organizations (1932) to the First Congress of Soviet Artists (1957),” Slavica Othiniensia 8 (1986): 3–23 Google Scholar; Guldberg, J., “Socialist Realism as Institutional Practice: Observations on the Interpretation of Works of Art of the Stalin Period,” in Günther, Hans, ed., The Culture of the Stalin Period (London, 1990), 149-77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. Geller, L. and Boden, A., “Institutsional'nyi kompleks sotsrealizma,” in Giunter, Hans [Günther] and Dobrenko, Evgenii, eds., Sotsrealisticheskii kanon (St. Petersburg, 2000), 290–319.Google Scholar

5. Zezina, M. R., Sovetskaia khudozhestvennaia intelligentsiia i vlast’ v 1950-e-60-e gg. (Moscow, 1999)Google Scholar; Manin, V. S., Iskusstvo v rezervatsii: Khudozhestvennaia zhizri Rossii, 1917-1941 (Moscow, 1999)Google Scholar; Jenks, Andrew, “From Periphery to Center: Palekh and Indigenization in the Russian Heartland,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 3, no. 3 (Summer 2002): 427-58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jenks, Andrew, Russia in a Box: Art and Identity in an Age of Revolution (DeKalb, 2005).Google Scholar

6. M. Baksendoll [Michael Baxandall], Uzory intentsii: Ob istoricheskom tolkovanii kartin (Moscow, 2003), 60-61 (translation of Michael Baxandall, Patterns of Intention [New Haven, 1985]).

7. Dunham, Vera, In Stalin's Time: Middledass Values in Soviet Fiction (Durham, 1990), 19-23 Google Scholar; Fitzpatrick, Sheila, The Cultural Front: Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia (Ithaca, 1992)Google Scholar; Kelly, Catriona and Volkov, Vadim, “Directed Desires: Kulturnost’ and Consumption,” in Kelly, Catriona and Shepherd, David, eds., Constructing Russian Culture in the Age of Revolution, 1881-1940 (Oxford, 1998), 312-13.Google Scholar

8. Osokina, E. A., “Predprinimatel'stvo i rynok v povsednevnoi zhizni pervykh piatiletok: Na primere rynka potrebitel'skikh tovarov,” Sotsial'naia istoriia. Ezhegodnik, 1998-1999 (Moscow, 1999)Google Scholar; Osokina, E. A., “Predprinimatel'stvo i rynok v period ‘svobodnoi torgovli': 1936-1941,” Sotsial'naia istoriia. Ezhegodnik, 2000 (Moscow, 2000)Google Scholar; Gronow, Jukka, Caviar with Champagne: Common Luxury and the Ideals of the Good Life in Stalin's Russia (Oxford, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hessler, Julie, A Social History of Soviet Trade: Trade Policy, Retail Practices and Consumption, 1917-1953 (Princeton, 2004).Google Scholar

9. Fitzpatrick, Sheila, “The Emergence of Glaviskusstvo: Class War on the Cultural Front, Moscow, 1928-1929,” Soviet Studies 23, no. 2 (October 1971): 253 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10. The Itinerants’ economic interests are discussed in S. A. Ekshtut, “Imperatorskaia akademiia khudozhestv i ‘bunt 14-ti,'“Dialog so vremenem: Al'manakh intellektual'noi istorii 10 (2003): 164-84.

11. Manin, Iskusstvo v rezervatsii, 102-3.

12. Igor Golomshtok, Totalitarnoe iskusstvo (Moscow, 1994).

13. Krivtsun, O., “Khudozhnik v istorii russkoi kul'tury: Evoliutsiia statusa,” Chelovek, no. 1 (1995): 119-38; no. 3 (1995): 105-20.Google Scholar

14. Leikina-Svirskaia, V. R., Russkaia intelligentsiia v 1900-1917 godakh (Moscow, 1981), 147-77.Google Scholar

15. It was specifically in these conditions that Ostap Bender and Kisa Vorob'ianinov, the heroes of the cult novel of the Soviet intelligentsia The Twelve Chairs, found work as artists.

16. Punin, N., Mir svetel liubov'iu. Dnevniki, Pis'ma (Moscow, 2000), 232.Google Scholar

17. Andreevskii, G. V., Povsednevnaiazhizn'Moskvy v stalinskuiu epokhu: 1920-1930-egg. (Moscow, 2003), 42–44.Google Scholar

18. Quoted in Khvoinik, I., “Izobrazitelnye iskusstva: Itogi vsesoiuznoi konferentsii khudozhnikov,” lskusstvo no. 3-4 (1929): 166.Google Scholar

19. “O merakh k sozdaniiu blagopriiatnikh uslovii zhizni khudozhnikov,” Sobranie zakonov i rasporiazhenii pravitel'stva SSSR, no. 21 (1930): 397.

20. RGALI, f. 962, op. 2, d. 73,1. 33.

21. For a list of the cooperatives and property belonging to Vsekokhudozhnik in 1953, see RGALI, f. 2907, op. 1, d. 85,11. 4-6.

22. Iu. Slavinskii, “K pervomu s'fezdu Vserossiiskogo kooperativnogo soiuza khudozhnikov,” Biulleten’ vserossiiskogo kooperativnogo soiuza “Vsekokhudozhnik” (June 1932): 5.

23. In the Stalinist era, Vsekokhudozhnik became the first artistic organization possessing economic independence (in selecting production and exhibition halls, in gaining access to foreign currency, etc.)

24. Kostin, V. I., “Kto tarn shagaet pravoi?” Panorama iskusstv 9 (1986): 133.Google Scholar

25. Chen, Jack, Soviet Art and Artists (London, 1944), 46 Google Scholar; RGALI, f. 2907, op. 1, d. 7, 1. 5.

26. For a description of the contracting process, see London, Seven Soviet Arts, 49-53.

27. Tvorchestvo, no. 7 (1936): 15.

28. For a discussion of the escapism of Soviet landscape painters, see Swanson, Vern Grosvenor, Soviet Impressionism (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2001).Google Scholar

29. Manin, Iskusstvo v rezervatsii, 172.

30. Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 17 April 1937.

31. Biulleteri vserossiiskogo kooperativnogo tovarishchestva “Khudozhnik” (April 1931): 43.

32. Ibid., 15.

33. Andrew Jenks analyzes Palekh's foreign currency operations. Additional research will be required to determine whether the idea of exporting the works of Soviet artists was successful.

34. Republished in Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 14 October 1933.

35. RGALI, f. 2458, op. 2, d. 3791,1. 5; d. 442,1. 29.

36. The list of publications dealing with socialist realism is extensive. The following works and exhibition catalogs have elicited great interest among the professional audience and public. Papernyi, Vladimir, Kultura “Dva” (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1984)Google Scholar; Günther, Hans, ed., The Culture of the Stalin Period (New York, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bown, Matthew Cullerne, ed., Soviet Socialist Realist Painting (Oxford, 1992)Google Scholar; Banks, Miranda, ed., The Aesthetic Arsenal: Socialist Realism under Stalin (New York, 1993)Google Scholar; Bown, Matthew Cullerne and Taylor, Brandon, eds., Art of the Soviets: Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture in a One-Party State, 1917-1992 (Manchester, Eng., 1993)Google Scholar; Lahusen, Thomas and Dobrenko, Evgeny, eds., Socialist Realism without Shores (Durham, 1997)Google Scholar; Susan Reid, “Destalinization and Remodernization of Soviet Ait: The Search for a Contemporary Realism, 1953-1963” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1996); Bown, Matthew Cullerne, Socialist Realist Painting (New Haven, 1998)Google Scholar; Jan Plamper, “The Stalin Cult in the Visual Arts, 1929-1953” (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2001); Groys, Boris and Hollein, Max, eds., Traumfabrik Kommunismus: Die Visuelk Kullur der Stalinzeit / Dream Factory Communism: The Visual Culture of the Stalin Era (Frankfurt am Main, 2003)Google Scholar; Nadtochii, E. V., “Drug, tovarishch i Bart: Neskol'ko predvaritel'nykh zamechanii k voprosu o meste sotsialisticheskogo realizma v iskusstve XX veka,” Daugava, no. 8 (1989): 114-20Google Scholar; Giunter, and Dobrenko, , eds., Sotsrealisticheskii kanon; Degot', Ekaterina, ed., Sovetskii idealism: Zhivopis'i kino 1925-1939 (Liege, 2005).Google Scholar

37. Lindey, Christine, Art in the Cold War: From Vladivostok to Kalamazoo, 1945-1962 (London, 1990), 62.Google Scholar

38. Gronow, Caviar with Champagne, 33.

39. Markin, Iu., “Iskusstvo tret'ego reikha,” Dekorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR, no. 3 (1989): 35.Google Scholar

40. Occupation of persons in the experience labor force and of employed persons. See http://www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/1950-03.pdf, no. 223 (last accessed 6 September 2006).

41. Vsesoiuznaia perepis’ naseleniia 1939. Osnovnye itogi. Russia (St. Petersburg, 1999), 177-79.

42. Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 23 June 1935.

43. Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 23 and 29 October 1935.

44. Reid, Susan E., “Socialist Realism in the Stalinist Terror: The Industry of Socialism Art Exhibition, 1935-1941,” Russian Review 60, no. 2 (April 2001): 153-84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

45. Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 17 December 1935.

46. N. Semashko, “Obschestvennost’ na izofronte,” Biulleteri vserossiiskogo kooperativnogo soiuza khudozhnikov “Vsekokhudozhnik” (June 1932): 11.

47. RGALI, f. 2907, op. 1, d. 85,11. 4 - 6 .

48. Manin, V. S., “Istoriia iz istorii,” Tvorchestvo, no. 7 (1989): 12–14.Google Scholar

49. See Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 29 March and 23 September 1937, and Tvorchestvo, no. 7 (1936): 6-19.

50. Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 1 March, 5 August, and 11 August 1937.

51. “O merakh bor'bi s lzhekooperativami,” Sobranie zakonov i rasporiazhenii pravitel'stva SSSR, no. 3 (1929): 70-72.

52. V S. Manin and Susan Reid also argue that the criticism of Vsekokhudozhnik was caused by the organization's excessive economic independence. See Manin, Iskusslvo v rezervatsii, 167-69, Reid, “Destalinization and Remodemization of Soviet Art,” 84.

53. On the role of the discussion of formalism and the Committee on Artistic Affairs in the 1936-1938 “cultural revolution,” see Maksimenkov, L. V., Sumbur vmesto muzyki: Stalinskaia kul'turnaia revoliutsiia, 1936-1938 (Moscow, 1997).Google Scholar

54. A collection of attacks on formalists was published in O. Beskin's book O Fonnalisrne v zhivopisi (Moscow, 1933).

55. Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Permskoi oblasti (GAPO), f. 1130, op. 1, d. 147,1. 12.

56. GAPO, f. 1130, op. 1, d. 146,11. 21ob.-22.

57. RGALI, f. 962, op. 6, d. 934,1. 9.

58. For a short study of prerevolutionary organizations dedicated to assisting artists, see Leikina-Svirskaia, Russkaia intelligentsiia, 158-72.

59. On parallelism as an endemic aspect of the institutional system of Soviet art, see Reid, “Destalinization and Remodernization of Soviet Art,” 91.

60. Materialy k pervomu s“ezdu sovetskikh khudozhnikov (Moscow, 1957), 7.

61. Biulleten’ vserossiiskogo kooperativnogo tovarishchestva “Khudozhnik “ (April 1931), 4, 9; RGALI, f. 1999, op. 1, d. 77,1. 10; RGALI, f. 2907, op. 1, d. 7,1. 82; and d. 85,1. 8.

62. Zezina, Sovetskaia khudozhestvennaia intelligentsiia, 54.

63. RGALI, f. 2943, op. 1, d. 2121,1. 6ob.

64. See, for example, the materials from the artistic councils of the cooperatives of Molotov and Saratov. GAPO, f. 604, op. 1, d. 10,1. 211; Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv saratovskoi oblasti (hereafter GASO), f. 1359, op. 1, d. 31,1. 59.

65. RGALI, f. 2073, op. 2, d. 31,11. 97,100, 107-8.

66. RGALI, f. 2943, op. 1, d. 2124,1. Hob.

67. We must distinguish between individual artistic replicas and copying on an industrial scale. Individual replicas were considered equal to independent artistic works and were priced accordingly. See Zwickl, András, “'Copyright': The Problem of Originals and Copies in the Paintings of the Fifties,” in György, Péter and Turai, Hedvig, eds., Art and Society in the Age of Stalin (Budapest, 1992), 65–68.Google Scholar

68. GAPO, f. 604, op. 1, d. 10,11. 10-11, 23.

69. GASO, f. 1359, op. 1, d. 31,11. 31-33.

70. GAPO, f. 1128, op.l, d. 7,11. 335-37. According to AndrewJenks's data, the same pay scale operated for folk crafts, only there the calculations were done in centimeters.

71. Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 19 September 1950.

72. GAPO, f. 604, op. 1, d. 22,1. 215.

73. On illegal enterprise in cooperatives, see A. A. Pass, “Kooperativy v sisteme ‘tenevoi’ ekonomiki na Urale (1939-1945),” Ural v kontekste Rossiiskoi modernizatsii (Cheliabinsk, 2005), 232-48.

74. Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 23 September 1937; RGALI, f. 2907, op. 1, d. 45,1. 2.

75. RGALI, f. 2907, op. 1, d. 7, 1. 5.

76. Tsentr dokumentatsii noveishei istorii saratovskoi oblasti, f. 2900, op. 1, d. 10, 11. 191-194ob.

77. Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 23 May 1937.

78. GAPO, f. 1128, op. 1, d. 5, 1. 331.

79. RGALI, f. 2943, op. 1, d. 2124, 1. 16.

80. RGALI, f. 2907, op. 1, d. 7, 1. 54.

81. Dunham, In Stalin's Time, 5, 15.