Socialist Realism

Socialist Realism is the 'only correct' creative method officially imposed in the USSR from 1934, which demanded the depiction of reality in its 'revolutionary development', party spirit, national character, and ideological content, and the glorification of communist construction and the 'new man'. In reality Socialist Realism was an instrument of ideological control over art: it narrowed subject matter, imposed clichés, forbade formal experiment and free thought, and dissenting writers were repressed. The introduction of Socialist Realism meant the destruction of the Ukrainian literary renaissance of the 1920s. Despite the pressure, talented artists created worthy works even within these limits (part of the heritage of Oles Honchar and Pavlo Tychyna), yet the method itself remains an example of the subordination of art to totalitarian ideology. Opposition to Socialist Realism came from the Sixtiers and dissident and émigré literature.