The economic dimensions of art in the Stalinist era: Artists' cooperatives in the grip of ideology and the plan

Slavic Review

Volumn 65, Issue 4, 2006, Pages 769-791

  Yankovskaya, Galina ^a  

^a PERM STATE UNIVERSITY   (Russian Federation)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33845910386     PISSN: 00376779     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/4148454     Document Type: Article

References (107)

1. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstva (RGALI), f. 2717, op. 1, d. 32, 11. 177-78.
2. Kurt London, The Seven Soviet Arts (London, 1937), 363.
3. For an explanation of the institutional approach, see J. Guldberg, "Artist Well Organized: The Organizational Structure of the Soviet Art Scene from the Liquidation of Artistic Organizations (1932) to the First Congress of Soviet Artists (1957)," Slavica Othiniensia 8 (1986): 3-23;
4. J. Guldberg, "Socialist Realism as Institutional Practice: Observations on the Interpretation of Works of Art of the Stalin Period," in Hans Günther, ed., The Culture of the Stalin Period (London, 1990), 149-77.
5. L. Geller and A. Boden, "Institutsional'nyi kompleks sotsrealizma," in Hans Giunter [Günther] and Evgenii Dobrenko, eds., Sotsrealisticheskii kanon (St. Petersburg, 2000), 290-319.
6. M. R. Zezina, Sovetskaia khudozhestvennaia intelligentsiia i vlast' v 1950-e-60-e gg. (Moscow, 1999);
7. V S. Manin, Iskusstvo v rezervatsii: Khudozhestvennaia zhizn' Rossii, 1917-1941 (Moscow, 1999);
8. Andrew Jenks, "From Periphery to Center: Palekh and Indigenization in the Russian Heartland," Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 3, no. 3 (Summer 2002): 427-58;
9. Andrew Jenks, Russia in a Box: Art and Identity in an Age of Revolution (DeKalb, 2005).
10. M. Baksendoll [Michael Baxandall], Uzory intentsii: Ob istoricheskom tolkovanii kartin (Moscow, 2003), 60-61 (translation of Michael Baxandall, Patterns of Intention [New Haven, 1985]).
11. Vera Dunham, In Stalin's Time: Middleclass Values in Soviet Fiction (Durham, 1990), 19-23;
12. Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Cultural Front: Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia (Ithaca, 1992);
13. Catriona Kelly and Vadim Volkov, "Directed Desires: Kulturnost' and Consumption," in Catriona Kelly and David Shepherd, eds., Constructing Russian Culture in the Age of Revolution, 1881-1940 (Oxford, 1998), 312-13.
14. E. A. Osokina, "Predprinimatel'stvo i rynok v povsednevnoi zhizni pervykh piatiletok: Na primere rynka potrebitel'skikh tovarov," Sotsial'naia istoriia. Ezhegodnik, 1998-1999 (Moscow, 1999);
15. E. A. Osokina, "Predprinimatel'stvo i rynok v period 'svobodnoi torgovli': 1936-1941," Sotsial'naia istoriia. Ezhegodnik, 2000 (Moscow, 2000);
16. Jukka Gronow, Caviar with Champagne: Common Luxury and the Ideals of the Good Life in Stalin's Russia (Oxford, 2003);
17. Julie Hessler, A Social History of Soviet Trade: Trade Policy, Retail Practices and Consumption, 1917-1953 (Princeton, 2004).
18. Sheila Fitzpatrick, "The Emergence of Glaviskusstvo: Class War on the Cultural Front, Moscow, 1928-1929," Soviet Studies 23, no. 2 (October 1971): 253.
19. The Itinerants' economic interests are discussed in S. A. Ekshtut, "Imperatorskaia akademiia khudozhestvi 'bunt 14-ti,'" Dialog so vremenem: Al'manakh intellektual'noi istorii 10 (2003): 164-84.
20. Manin, Iskusstvo v rezervatsii, 102-3.
21. Igor Golomshtok, Totalitarnoe iskusstvo (Moscow, 1994).
22. O. Krivtsun, "Khudozhnik v istorii russkoi kul'tury: Evoliutsiia statusa," Chelovek, no. 1 (1995): 119-38; no. 3 (1995): 105-20.
23. V. R. Leikina-Svirskaia, Russkaia intelligentsiia v 1900-1917 godakh (Moscow, 1981), 147-77.
24. 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.
25. N. Punin, Mir svetel liubov'iu. Dnevniki, Pis'ma (Moscow, 2000), 232.
26. G.V. Andreevskii, Povsednevnaia zhizn' Moskvy v stalinskuiu epokhu: 1920-1930-e gg. (Moscow, 2003), 42-44.
27. Quoted in I. Khvoinik, "Izobrazitelnye iskusstva: Itogi vsesoiuznoi konferentsii khudozhnikov," Iskusstvo no. 3-4 (1929): 166.
28. "O merakh k sozdaniiu blagopriiatnikh uslovii zhizni khudozhnikov," Sobranie zakonov i rasporiazhenii pravitel'stva SSSR, no. 21 (1930): 397.
29. RGALI, f. 962, op. 2, d. 73, 1. 33.
30. For a list of the cooperatives and property belonging to Vsekokhudozhnik in 1953, see RGALI, f. 2907, op. 1, d. 85, 11. 4-6.
31. ezdu Vserossiiskogo kooperativnogo soiuza khudozhnikov," Biulleten' vserossiiskogo kooperativnogo soiuza "Vsekokhudozhnik" (June 1932): 5.
32. In the Stalinist era, Vsekokhudozhnik became the first artistic organization possessing econemic independence (in selecting production and exhibition halls, in gaining access to foreign currency, etc.)
33. V. I. Kostin, "Kto tam shagaet pravoi?" Panorama iskusstv 9 (1986): 133.
34. Jack Chen, Soviet Art and Artists (London, 1944), 46;
35. RGALI, f. 2907, op. 1, d. 7, 1. 5.
36. For a description of the contracting process, see London, Seven Soviet Arts, 49-53.
37. Tvorchestvo, no. 7 (1936): 15.
38. For a discussion of the escapism of Soviet landscape painters, see Vern Grosvenor Swanson, Soviet Impressionism (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2001).
39. Manin, Iskusstvo v rezervatsii, 172.
40. Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 17 April 1937.
41. Biulleten'vserossiiskogo koaperativnogo tovarishchestva "Khudozhnik" (April 1931): 43.
42. Ibid., 15.
43. 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.
44. Republished in Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 14 October 1933.
45. RGALI, f. 2458, op. 2, d. 3791, 1. 5; d. 442, 1. 29.
46. 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. Vladimir Papernyi, Kultura "Dva" (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1984);
47. Hans Günther, ed., The Culture of the Stalin Period (New York, 1990);
48. Matthew Cullerne Bown, ed., Soviet Socialist Realist Painting (Oxford, 1992);
49. Miranda Banks, ed., The Aesthetic Arsenal: Socialist Realism under Stalin (New York, 1993);
50. Matthew Cullerne Bown and Brandon Taylor, eds., Art of the Soviets: Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture in a One-Party State, 1917-1992 (Manchester, Eng., 1993);
51. Thomas Lahusen and Evgeny Dobrenko, eds., Socialist Realism without Shores (Durham, 1997);
52. Susan Reid, "Destalinization and Remodernization of Soviet Art: The Search for a Contemporary Realism, 1953-1963" (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1996);
53. Matthew Cullerne Bown, Socialist Realist Painting (New Haven, 1998);
54. Jan Plamper, "The Stalin Cult in the Visual Arts, 1929-1953" (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2001);
55. Boris Groys and Max Hollein, eds., Traumfabrik Kommunismus: Die Visuelle Kultur der Stalinzeit/Dream Factory Communism: The Visual Culture of the Stalin Era (Frankfurt am Main, 2003);
56. E. V. Nadtochii, "Drug, tovarishch i Bart: Neskol'ko predvaritel'nykh zamechanii k voprosu o meste sotsialisticheskogo realizma v iskusstve XX veka," Daugava, no. 8 (1989): 114-20;
57. Giunter and Dobrenko, eds., Sotsrealisticheskii kanon;
58. Ekaterina Degot" ed., Sovetskii idealism: Zhivopis'i kino 1925-1939 (Liege, 2005).
59. Christine Lindey, Art in the Cold War: From Vladivostok to Kalamazoo, 1945-1962 (London, 1990), 62.
60. Gronow, Caviar with Champagne, 33.
61. Iu. Markin, "Iskusstvo tret'ego reikha," Dekorativnoe iskusstvo, SSSR, no. 3 (1989): 35.
62. Occupation of persons in the experience labor force and of employed persons. See www2.census.gov/prod2/statcomp/documents/1950-03.pdf, no. 223 (last accessed 6 September 2006).
63. Vsesoiuznaia perepis' naseleniia 1939. Osnovnye itogi. Russia (St. Petersburg, 1999), 177-79.
64. Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 23 June 1935.
65. Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 23 and 29 October 1935.
66. Susan E. Reid, "Socialist Realism in the Stalinist Terror: The Industry of Socialism Art Exhibition, 1935-1941," Russian Review 60, no. 2 (April 2001): 153-84.
67. Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 17 December 1935.
68. N. Semashko, "Obschestvennost' na izofronte," Biulleten' vserossiiskogo kooperativnogo soiuza khudozhnikov "Vsekokhudozhnik" (June 1932): 11.
69. RGALI, f. 2907, op. 1, d. 85, 11. 4-6.
70. V. S. Manin, "Istoriia iz istorii," Tvorchestvo, no. 7 (1989): 12-14.
71. See Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 29 March and 23 September 1937,
72. and Tvorchestvo, no. 7 (1936): 6-19.
73. Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 1 March, 5 August, and 11 August 1937.
74. "O merakh bor'bi s lzhekooperativami," Sobranie zakonov i rasporiazhenii pravitel'stva SSSR, no. 3 (1929): 70-72.
75. V. S. Martin and Susan Reid also argue that the criticism of Vsekokhudozhnik was caused by the organization's excessive economic independence. See Manin, Iskusstvo v rezervatsii, 167-69,
76. Reid, "Destalinization and Remodernization of Soviet Art," 84.
77. On the role of the discussion of formalism and the Committee on Artistic Affairs in the 1936-1938 "cultural revolution," see L. V. Maksimenkov, Sumbur vmesto muzyki: Stalinskaia kul'turnaia revoliutsiia, 1936-1938 (Moscow, 1997).
78. A collection of attacks on formalists was published in O. Beskin's book O Formalisme v zhivopisi (Moscow, 1933).
79. Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Permskoi oblasti (GAPO), f. 1130, op. 1, d. 147, 1. 12.
80. GAPO, f. 1130, op. 1, d. 146, 11. 21ob.-22.
81. RGALI, f. 962, op. 6, d. 934, 1. 9.
82. For a short study of prerevolutionary organizations dedicated to assisting artists, see Leikina-Svirskaia, Russkaia intelligentsiia, 158-72.
83. On parallelism as an endemic aspect of the institutional system of Soviet art, see Reid, "Destalinization and Remodernization of Soviet Art," 91.
84. ezdu sovetskikh khudozhnikov (Moscow, 1957), 7.
85. Biulleten' vserossiiskogo kooperativnogo tovarishchestva "Khudozhnik" (April 1931), 4, 9;
86. RGALI, f. 1999, op. 1, d. 77, 1. 10; RGALI, f. 2907, op. 1, d. 7, 1. 82; and d. 85, 1. 8.
87. Zezina, Sovetskaia khudozhestvennaia intelligentsiia, 54.
88. RGALI, f. 2943, op. 1, d. 2121, 1. 6ob.
89. 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.
90. RGALI, f. 2073, op. 2, d. 31, 11. 97, 100, 107-8.
91. RGALI, f. 2943, op. 1, d. 2124, 1. 11 ob.
92. 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 András Zwickl, "'Copyright': The Problem of Originals and Copies in the Paintings of the Fifties," in Péter György and Hedvig Turai, eds., Art and Society in the Age of Stalin (Budapest, 1992), 65-68.
93. GAPO, f. 604, op. 1, d. 10, 11. 10-11, 23.
94. GASO, f. 1359, op. 1, d. 31, 11. 31-33.
95. GAPO, f. 1128, op. 1, d. 7, 11. 335-37. According to Andrew Jenks's data, the same pay scale operated for folk crafts, only there the calculations were done in centimeters.
96. Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 19 September 1950.
97. GAPO, f. 604, op. 1, d. 22, 1. 215.
98. 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.
99. Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 23 September 1937;
100. RGALI, f. 2907, op. 1, d. 45, 1. 2.
101. RGALI, f. 2907, op. 1, d. 7, 1. 5.
102. Tsentr dokumentatsii noveishei istorii saratovskoi oblasti, f. 2900, op. 1, d. 10, 11. 191-194ob.
103. Sovetskoe iskusstvo, 23 May 1937.
104. GAPO, f. 1128, op. 1, d. 5, 1. 331.
105. RGALI, f. 2943, op. 1, d. 2124, 1. 16.
106. RGALI, f. 2907, op. 1, d. 7, 1. 54.
107. Dunham, In Stalin's Time, 5, 15.