Что такое социалистический реализм

by Andrei Sinyavsky, Абрам Терц

"A Brilliant and revealing examination of Soviet literary doctrine by a young Russian Writer with an introduction by Czeslaw Milosz"

Genres: Nonfiction, Russia, Literature

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1957

About the author

Andrei Donatovich Sinyavsky was a Russian writer and a literary critic. He was a Soviet dissident known as a defendant in the Sinyavsky–Daniel trial of 1965.

Russian: Андрей Донатович Синявский
Pen name: Абрам Терц
Pen name in English: Abram Tertz

Reviews

[Nick Tramdack · Rating 4 out of 5]

These days, no one gives a shit about socialist realism. But decades years later, Abram Tertz's samizdat is still well worth reading. And here's why. Let's start with a quote...

"Instead of following the road of conventional forms, pure fantasy, and imagination which the great religious cultures always took, [Socialist Realist writers] try to compromise. They lie, they maneuver, and they try to combine the uncombinable: the positive hero (who logically tends toward the pattern, the allegory) and the psychological analysis of character; elevated style and declamation with prosaic descriptions of ordinary life; a high ideal with truthful representation of life. The result is a loathsome literary salad." [p.90-91]

As a careful reader will notice, Abram Tertz's samizdat isn't just an incisive attack on the poor aesthetic possibilities of literature as practiced in the USSR circa 1935. It's also an attack on ALL writing that tries to portray archetypal characters in a materialist setting. The quote above could easily read as an attack on Ayn Rand's attempts to write exhaustively researched and realized, pro-capitalist, yet totally over-the-top "romantic realist" novels. The resemblance between the two is no coincidence. As usual, extremes meet by way of mutual failure; hard-left and hard-right literature share the same insurmountable problems...

This little book contains many witty bon mots about classic Russian literature (for instance, that it's "full of love stories in which an inadequate man and a beautiful woman meet and part without achieving anything"). Best of all, it finishes up with an impassioned defense of what might be called "weird" writing:

"May the fantastic imagery of Hoffmann and Dostoevski, of Goya, Chagall and Mayakovski (the most socialist realist of all), and of many other realists and nonrealists teach us how to be truthful with the aid of the absurd and the fantastic." [94-95]

Fuck yeah!

[Chet]

Could be called an autopsy. This is written post death of Stalin. Both the intro and the essay itself emphasize the religious nature of the titular enterprise. This accusation in the West used to ruffle socialists' feathers: "Marxism is *not* just another religion. We are principled scientific materialists!" But nowadays such associations are more likely to be embraced by Marxists. See especially in the US the Infrared MAGA communism approach. The author's early pessimism is not unwarranted. The USSR would collapse a few decades later. He's correct to trace this danger to Khrushchev's traitorous nihilism. Me personally I love socialist realism. I think it's some of the best literature the 20th century has to offer. I'm glad China continues carrying that torch into the 21st century.

[Atreju · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un'analisi lucidissima, con robusti riferimenti alla tradizione letteraria del XIX e del XVIII secolo. Un'arte politicamente orientata che ha inaridito la letteratura russa. O meglio, che ha sfornato un'ampia platea di romanzi mediocri. Una contraddizione in termini, una sterile rivisitazione del classicismo, la morte dell'ironia. In una letteratura d'ispirazione religiosa (il comunismo) sparisce anche l'arma dell'ironia. Solo i miscredenti praticano l'ironia. Ora, al più, c'è solo spazio per il patetico. Illuminante, come sempre, Sinjavskij.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was "smuggled" out of Soviet Totalitarian Russia. It deals entirely with the movement/ideology of Russian socialist realism.

The author goes through why it is that the Russian writer is put into this position. Culturally and historically. It speaks of socialist realism as a response to changing ideology's of the time. It compares Socialist realism, and the idea behind it, that all human history has and is marching inexorably toward communism, with a move backward in the ideas of man. A return to Christian type writings.

Interesting read

See my detailed notes on the book at: Notes: On Socialist Realism

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading Andrei Donatovich Sinyavsky (Андрей Донатович Синявский), aka Abram Tertz, (10/8/25, Moscow-2/25/97, Paris) was a continuation of a flirtation with Soviet sf which had begun with my reading of Asimov's collection of this literature in the early sixties and had continued with the reading of Zamiatin and others.

This book, however, is not fiction. It is a critique of socialist realism and defense of speculative fantasy by a Soviet writer during the Kruschev thaw.

[Delta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb.