Boris Asaf'ev and the Soviet Musicology - E-thesis

conservative writers. 43 This aspect reveals foremost how ideologically mixed the roots
of the socialist realism were.
Another so called objective approach can be found for example in Irina Gutkin who
views socialist realism as a product or a compromise of the views of different avantgarde
artistic movements of the revolutionary period 1890–1935. She argues:
[f]or all their differences, the Bolsheviks and the successive artistic avant-garde
movements shared the ideal of attaining a future ideal society that would rise above
material contingency and allow everyone to become a demiurge. It was this shared goal
that opened the potential for their competition and/or cooperation [..] the socialist realism
as a cultural consciousness emerged as the result of complex mutations and combinations
of several combating mythological or belief systems and visionary designs for an ideal
society that interacted in the Russian cultural tradition. 44
The indirect and mythological basis of the so called ‘historical and dialectical method’
of socialist realism is to be found in the contradictious writings of Karl Marx (1818–
1883), Friedrich Engels (1820–1895) and Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924). It was
demonstrated in Soviet aesthetic books with various examples and interpretations taken
from the original texts of Marx, Engels and Lenin. In many cases the original texts were
exploited and interpreted illogically and arbitrary, without seeing the context of the
writings. 45 As Irina Gutkin has emphasized, many Western scholars have concerned
themselves almost exclusively with assessments of Marxist components in Soviet
aesthetics. 46 Although this approach is one of important aspects in exploring the
socialist realism it is also misleading in the sense that Marx and Engels wrote hardly
anything about art. The true formulators were Soviet scholars and artists, such as
Maxim Gorgij (1868–1936), Anatolij Lunačarskij, Anton Makarenko (1883–1939),
Boris Asaf’ev, various artistic movements, Party members, and as an enhancive power –
the Soviet people. 47 Thus, it is good to remember (especially in our context) that
Marxism and Soviet communism, and especially Soviet aesthetical theory, were two or
43
Rogachevskii 1997, p. 36.
44
Gutkin 1999, p. 150.
45
See for example Marx & Engels: Taiteesta ja Kirjallisuudesta [On Art and Literature] 1973.
46
Gutkin 1999, p. 2.
47
See for example Krutous 1980, p. 321 in Marxist-Leninist Aesthetics and Arts; Solomon 1979, p. 5.
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