Devices of Lenin's Language: Out of Synch with the Thing (original) (raw)

Revolutionaries in Form: the Russian Futurist Poets in the Cultural Politics of the Early Soviet Union, 1917-1928

2020

which was defined by the works of the poet Igor-Severyanin. After the revolution, "Futurist" was used interchangeably with the nebulous term "left artist" to describe any artist or poet within the avant-garde. The Cubo-Futurists were, however, the most influential strand of Russian Futurism 2 prior to the revolution. Additionally, a number of leading Cubo-Futurist poets, most notably Mayakovsky, Burliuk, Vasiliy Kamensky and Khlebnikov were among the first Russian artists to openly accept the October Revolution and the Bolshevik regime. In light of this, for the purposes of this essay, I use the terms "Futurist" and "Futurism" to describe the poets and artists who either originated in the pre-revolutionary Cubo-Futurist movement, or closely identified with its poetic platform. Cubo-Futurism, as Leon Trotsky correctly pointed out in 1923, "originated in an eddy of bourgeois art, and could not have originated otherwise." Most of the Cubo-Futurists were lower 3 to middle-class Russian bohemians who moved to Moscow and St. Petersburg from the Russian provinces, as opposed to the dominant poets of the time, the Symbolists, who were largely from upper-class and aristocratic backgrounds.. Marjorie Perloff in her book The Futurist Moment:

Confronting Modernism: Mikhail Lifshits as Critic and Philosopher of Culture

Oittinen / Viljanen (Eds.) Stalin Era Intellectuals, 2023

In today's world it is the communists who must take on the protection of categorical values of the art-culture, which has arisen over centuries of sacrificial labour. 1 Introduction The Stalin era was not only a time of extremely accelerated modernist endeavours, urbanization, heavy industrialization, geo-engineering, forced collectivization, generational struggle, 2 and increasing administrative and ideological control-it was also a time when infrastructures as well as scientific, educational, and cultural institutions had to be rethought and expanded while the question of the basis of cultural politics became inevitable. Although these developments in science, arts, and education were massive, on the 'cultural front' this era often presents itself as a regressive, anti-modernist, conservative time of restauration, when official cultural politics and its supporters tried to establish the official doctrine of 'socialist realism' for cultural politics and put an end to the different experiments in the first decade of the Soviet Union. These developments have often been seen as a kind of cultural dawn, like the grey days of depression that Marx was alluding to after the revolutionary attempts of 1848. However, the 1930s were not like the 1850s or even like postrevolutionary imperial France-although, to some extent, Soviet intellectuals saw analogies with it and upheld the view of a post-revolutionary Thermidor (see Oittinen 2016). However, not all former experiments were undogmatic, viable, or really relatable to a Marxist perspective. In the new socialist state, all developments in modernity had to be revised from a different angle. The cultural political questions about scientific communism and education, the role of art in society, as well as the aesthetic and cultural theory of Marxism were still open. 1 Lifshits 1971, p. 169: 'In der Welt von heute müssen gerade die Kommunisten den Schutz der unbedingten Werte der Kunstkultur übernehmen, die in Jahrhunderten aufopferungsvoller Arbeit entstanden ist.' 2 Helena Sheehan (2021) recently reminded us that the Stalinist purges in the 1930s had also generational as well as educational reasons, when a new generation with less international experience and less education but more authoritarian, nationalist, and/or careerist views was putting pressure on the older more 'cosmopolitan' Bolsheviks, scientists et al. A very influential and extraordinary example of a genuine engagement with these questions is the work of the literary critic, editor, lecturer, and philosopher Mikhail Lifshits 3 (1905-1983), who can be seen as one of the earliest proponents of a Marxist aesthetics on a cultural historical basis. To understand his work and its legacy, we need to keep its historical background in mind, when internationally the threat of Fascism and Anti-Communism was all too real. While the geopolitical situation was worsening and impacted ideology and propaganda on all sides, thinkers like Lifshits tried to uphold a critical perspective and see common problems in modern societies and their tendencies in 'populist' and 'totalitarian' directions and towards forms of 'false consciousness'. The analysis of his work supports the suggestions of understanding the Stalin era in the perspective of 'shared modernity' (David-Fox 2015, pp. 1-20) and to see Stalin era culture as a 'particular Soviet incarnation of modern mass culture' (Hoffman 2003, p. 10). However, when engaging with Lifshits' work we also need to remember the philosophical ideal of reconciling critique and praxis (Röttgers 1975). It may have been one of the most important tasks of all post-Kantian projects to connect theoretical and practical philosophy without falling back behind the 'Copernican Revolution' of Critical Philosophy and defending the 'courage of thought' (Hegel 1818). The formulation of a Philosophy of Culture was one of those projects. Although influenced by Giambattista Vico, this project took its lead from Hegel's Phenomenology (Levi 1966, p. 19), and consists in considering the plurality and interferences of cultural forms in modernity. This perspective remains rather marginal today. It is in this philosophical framework that in the following I want to present the work of Lifshits by relating at the same time to his outspoken Marxist-Leninist position. My first thesis is that it was not against (or apart). this conviction but precisely to defend, unfold, and develop it that Lifshits was continuing and revising classicist European traditions from the Renaissance and the Enlightenment to Classical German Philosophy and 19 th century liberalism. He saw the ideas of this heritage as predecessors and as vital parts of Marxism. 4 Hegelian philosophy, which Lifshits was particularly in favour of, provided the background of a common cultural historical perspective. 3 Usually, the family name is given in English as 'Lifshitz', since this was the way chosen by the author, showing the Germanic, i.e., Yiddish, background of the name. But, because of editorial demands from the publisher the transliteration for English is used here instead. 4 On the Enlightenment tradition in Marxism, see Oittinen 2019, and for the Soviet context Chehonadskih 2017. My second thesis is that Lifshits had already developed the basic perspective of all his writings very early on and that it remained consistent throughout his literary career. What is seen as contradictory in his work will prove to be a rather necessary perspectival expression of one and the same philosophical view. Lifshits can be considered as recipient, observer, and participant of the 'cultural revolution' and the breaks of the 1930s. I will thus concentrate my analysis on an important yet hitherto unanalysed article (1934), where the outline of the theoretical basis of Lifshits' work becomes graspable, which he was never able to present in a more systematic fashion. In the following, I first outline the development of Lifshits' thought and the problems of reception. Afterwards, I concentrate on the analysis of Lifshits' article 'O kul'ture i ee porokakh' ('On Culture and Its Faults') (Lifshits 1934), and then introduce a more global perspective of scholarly antifascism in the 1930s, before closing with an outlook on Lifshits' work in terms of a theory of culture in modernity. The Reality of Contradictions and the Problem of Truth In the 1930s, Lifshits, not the least because of his publications in German and English, was known mainly due to his attempt at proposing a genuine Marxist aesthetics (Lifshits 1933, 1938) and his involvement in the literary debates of the time about realism as well as in the polemics against 'vulgar sociologism'. Afterwards, he was somewhat forgotten in the 1940s, but he became notorious in the Soviet context when he dared to break the silence of critics about Stalinism and the cynicism of its nomenclatura in Tvardovsky's journal Novy Mir, the leading literary organ of the Thaw period (see Riff in Lifshitz 2018, pp. 1-2). Since this was still a very risky endeavour-and Lifshits was aware of the risks and was ready to pay the price of party exclusion-it came as a surprise to many when, in the 1960s, he began to publish explicitly 'antimodernist' critiques of art, which seemed like a Stalinist backlash (see Lifshitz 2018). These works made him famous or, rather, infamous throughout the 'Eastern Bloc' and cemented the retrospect narrative that he, not only as a friend and colleague of György Lukács (see below), was among those who helped to form the

Discussing Modernism: How the Moscow Union of Artists Questioned its Art Theory

What Is to Be Done? Art Practice, Theory, and Promotion in Late Imperial and Soviet Russia, 2024

This essay examines theoretical discussions within the Moscow Union of Artists (MOSKh) during the 1960s, a time when conventions of Socialist Realism, framed during the years of Stalinism, were called into question. Numerous public debates about art and its aesthetic and social value were sparked by exhibitions of western modernist art in Moscow, as well as by the discovery of Soviet post-revolutionary art. Surprisingly though, the transcripts discussing this problem in the archives of the Moscow Union of Artists are few. Nevertheless, these documents provide insights into the conversations that took place within this official art organization during the 1960s and shed light on its ideological and intellectual climate. This essay proposes to divide this period into three stages. At the beginning of the 1960s, the Moscow Union of Artists held lectures on the main trends of European art in the first half of the twentieth century. The years 1962 and 1963 were marked by the display of Soviet modernist art of the 1920s and heated discussions were provoked by the exhibition 30 years of MOSKh at the Moscow Manege. The third stage covers the second half of the 1960s, when the debate stagnated and largely recycled the ideas of the early 1960s. The examination of the MOSKh transcripts shows that although Soviet artists and art critics expressed fascination with modernist art, they appreciated only its artistic values and ignored its experimental nature. As a result, the names of Pablo Picasso and Fernand Léger were used to defend ideas of continuity and traditionalism in art.

No Future for the Futurists? Art of the Commune and the Quest for a New Art in Post-Revolutionary Russia

2000

This article will examine the place of Futurists artists in Bolshevik Russia in the first years after the October 1917 Revolution, using the Futurist newspaper Art of the Commune as a case study. It will also raise the question of how effective could Futurism be in the political education of the illiterate people. The author will focus on 1918-1919the first two years after the October Revolution when both Proletkult and Narkompros gained a national following and became major players in cultural debates. Following 1922, as a result of funding cutbacks at the end of the Civil War and changed status of both organisations in Soviet society, they rapidly declined to a small and restricted core of members, and soon lost their influential position in the new State of Workers and Peasants. In this article the author concentrates on the formation and blossoming of Proletarian Culture in Russia (the term 'proletariat', which in Russia represented the class of wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, were reduced to selling their labour power in order to live). The establishment of the new values of the new society became the main aim of art after the revolution and Art of the Commune was a major player in it.

Head-First Through the Hole in the Zero: Malevich’s Suprematism, Khlebnikov’s Futurism, and the Development of a Deconstructive Aesthetic, 1908–1919

Electronic Melbourne Art Journal

Suprematism's attempt to move beyond representation in painting coincided with an attempt to move beyond Russian Futurist poetry and literature. It was an attempt to go 'beyond zero'. In making that move, however, Kasimir Malevich, creator of suprematism, needed to develop from Russian Futurism-particularly that of Velimir Khlebnikov-working within the Russian avant-garde. Through his painterly reliance on the square, Malevich not only worked in concert with Futurists such as Khlebnikov but ultimately elaborated on a literary theory bound by the constraints of language. In essence, Malevich's Suprematism could not get 'beyond zero' until Khlebnikov's Futurism got him there. Inception At birth, there is nothing: a mind devoid of representational imagery. But children grow. Imagery mounts. Kasimir Malevich's project throughout the majority of his artistic life was to re-find that original purity. 'I have transformed myself in the zero of form', wrote the artist in 1915, 'and through zero have reached creation, that is, suprematism, the new painterly realism-nonobjective creation'. 1 Malevich's transformation-his ideological development-depended on contact with the Russian avant-garde and, specifically, the Russian Futurist poets of the early twentieth century. That dependence demonstrated the benefit of interdisciplinary collusion. 'I think that first of all art is that not everyone can understand a thing in depths', wrote Malevich in 1913, 'this is left only to the black sheep of time'. 2 Through his consistent painterly reliance on the square, Malevich not only worked in concert with the Futurist poets, but ultimately elaborated on a literary theory bound by the constraints of language. The Russian avant-garde community congealed into a recognizable entity between 1907 and 1908, and the distinct presence of Futurism emerged approximately two years later, including the poets Velimir Khlebnikov and Alexei Kruchenykh, as well as Vladimir Mayakovsky, Olga Rozanova, and the brothers David, Nikolai, and Vladimir Burliuk, among others. 3 Rozanova, a painter, enunciated a common theme

A Slap in the Face of Public Taste: The Russian Futurists' Aesthetics of Revolution

This thesis examines the historical context in which Russian Futurism formed in 1910 in order to comprehend better this significant movement’s motivations, ideologies, aesthetics, and effects on subsequent literature, art, and politics, particularly those of Russia. It identifies the primary problems of the late Russian Empire and how various groups sought to provide solutions to these troubles to help Russia become modern. While scholars often focus on the Bolsheviks’ proposal of a two-fold socio-political revolution because this view prevailed in and after 1917, other organizations promoted their own interpretations of how to address Russia’s numerous troubles that offer insight into the era and the diversity of opinions that existed during this turbulent period. This project focuses on the most well-known group of Russian Futurists, Hylaea (sometimes also called the Cubo-Futurists), because its members developed unconventional aesthetics of revolution to spread their plan to the Russian public from the time of its founding in 1910 until the outbreak of the Great War in 1914. The Hylaean Futurists’ proposal expanded upon and differed from the Bolsheviks’ vision of revolution because it called for a three-tiered revolution that would encompass aesthetics in addition to politics and society. By deliberately infusing their iconoclastic aesthetics of revolution into their writings, books, and performances, the Hylaeans slapped ambivalent and complacent Russians awake to the shameful conditions that existed in the empire’s antiquated political, social, and artistic systems. This thesis includes a number of detailed case studies of the Hylaean Futurists’ pre-war publications, rhetoric, illustrations, and performances in order to understand more comprehensively their inspiration, aesthetics, techniques, interpretation of revolution, and relationship with the socialists before the momentous revolutions of 1917.