Cultural Construction in the Soviet Empire (HIS315 F20)

After reading chapters 3 and 4 from “Beau Monde on Empire’s Edge” by Mayhill C. Fowler, it is easy for me to presume that we all saw the issue of Soviet censorship from a mile away. Although, with the idea of not having to entertain an audience of “normal” people and rather one in which supplies funding for the theater directly, it is not a wonder why the content of the performances was catered to them instead. However, Fowler points out, “according to Soviet ideology, shouldn’t all art be for everyone? After all, too much focus on securing the hard-won rubles from the lower-class audience members created art that was ostensibly ‘lower’ in the artistic hierarchy of the Russian Empire” (Fowler, 96). I feel this is an interesting concept and obviously counterintuitive to spreading culture when, in reality, only the elites enjoy the larger productions in Moscow.

Perhaps the real culture is to be found in that of the literature discussed between the comparisons of Ostap Vyshnia and Il’f -Petrov. Both were very famous and responsible for works that are still referenced as great sources of Soviet literature. Although Vyshnia struggled with the issue of making his work something for the masses to enjoy, he had no struggle in creating well praised Soviet entertainment. I believe that besides the modernized level of production, Soviet Ukrainian culture was most noteworthy for the simple fact that the Officialdom supported and promoted it in a way that we have yet to see so far. This idea is supported by Fowler’s statement that “Indeed the years of Ukrainization corresponded to years of artistic flourishing in Soviet Ukraine” (Fowler, 118).

I think that it is extremely smart and well done by the Soviet Union to come in and support artistic movement when it is needed most. Artists needed to have their business’s survive and that even meant making a deal with the devil himself. I just am curious as to what everyone else thinks , whether this deal really excludes other cultures practices in the work of art. could this not be fair economically for the creators of the work of art in this new economy? “In the heady days of the New Economic Policy, artists competed for funding from various pots, whether from Party or state committees at the city, republic, or Union level, or from the Arts Workers’ Union. But, by the late 1920s, artists had achieved what they had long desired: full state support for the arts. As artists had imagined, state support facilitated artistic production.”  Page 97

MLA (Modern Language Assoc.)
Fowler, Mayhill C. Beau Monde on Empire’s Edge : State and Stage in Soviet Ukraine. University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division, 2017.

APA (American Psychological Assoc.)
Fowler, M. C. (2017). Beau Monde on Empire’s Edge : State and Stage in Soviet Ukraine. University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division.

In Chapters 3 and 4, Fowler took a deeper dive into the Soviet government’s control on art and how this focus affected various forms of entertainment. Last class we discussed censorship, but I think it is important to think more about how censorship and manipulation of the arts and media can alter the perception of citizens and how the need to be funded by the state affected the execution of the arts. The text states, “Artists could not depend on book or ticket sales to prove resonance with an audience. Competition among artists for financial support was still fierce, but artists focused not on soliciting interest from the audience members or private patrons, but rather from the Party-state” (Fowler 96) and “With audience input therefore removed, Party-state patronage became crucial to finance theatre, and local connections with officialdom provided the path to securing funds. Socialist theatre had no box office – or at least not a box office contributing in any significant way to a theatre’s income. What mattered for success was not how many tickets a theatre sold, but how many seats its managers succeeded in “organizing” through Party connections” (116). I never thought about just how far the Soviet government financed and influenced art, especially theater, across the various nations.

Questions I’ve been thinking about:

1. Do you think catering the message of the arts to benefit the Soviet ideals compromises the purpose of theater, film, literature, etc.?
2. On page 113, the author discusses the statistics and number of people who actually visited the Berezil, which turned out to be only about half a percent of the population in Soviet Ukraine, and also states that an even smaller percentage saw Hello from Radiowave 477!. Even with such recorded low audiences in comparison to the overall population, do you think shows and programs like this were influential to developing Soviet Ukrainian art? Were they successful?
3. In the last ten pages or so pages of Chapter 3, the author discusses the nationality policy’s affect on the arts, specifically referring to Soviet Ukraine. How did the nationality policy actually hinder minority art and create an ethnic hierarchy?
4. Despite the flourishing of art and the representation of various ethnic identities, the founding fathers of art and theater in the Soviet Union all met tragic endings and their legacies were not always discussed positively. The text states, “In 1937 Khvyl’ovyi had committed suicide, Dosvitnyi, Kulish, Iohansen, and Kurbas were shot, and Hirniak and Vyshnia were imprisoned in the gulag” (Fowler 118). Do you think the art movement was still successful in promoting innovation and promoting diverse ethnic identities?

“There is a famous scene, in fact, in Circus where the small mixed-race child … is passed around the entire audience of the circus, and everyone sings to the child a lullaby in a different language of he Union” (98).

“The literary fair solved this dilemma, like good Soviets, by organizing the arts according to ethno-national categories: Jewish audiences were assigned to the Jewish theatre with Jewish artists and Jewish plays; Ukrainian audiences to the Ukrainian theatre…”(119).

Reading through the third chapter of Beau Monde on Empire’s Edge: State and Stage in Soviet Ukraine I found this two passages to be in conflict with each other (go figure, right!). I was wondering what the class thinks? Is this another case of financials determining the agenda or are cultural boundaries more pronounced than officials thought? Moreover, what do you think about the cultural exchanges discussed in the very first part of this chapter?

As we have progressed chronologically in Soviet history we have been encountering more direct examples of communist repression and persecution. Encountering things identifying as ‘great’ but were far from it such as the Great Famine, Purge, and Terror. Apart of the odious apparatus of Soviet persecution was the collectivization campaign of course, and in the reading we discern that this had a cultural aspect of it with the suppression of the avant garde Ukrainian art movement. In these chapters we are described the formation of a distinct cultural epicenter in Soviet Ukraine. This was due to the unique cultural landscape of the region, being made up of Jews, Poles, Russians, and Ukrainians. Investments in the imperial Southwest by Catherine the Great into the humanities of Odessa created a burgeoning artistic center. “But Odesa, in fact, belongs to a greater cultural phenomenon of the entire region. Multi-ethnic interactions in the small towns and cities throughout the southwestern provinces inspired and shaped the many artists featured in this book” (Fowler 29) This hub of cultural in Soviet periphery provided a different type of artistry than that offered in Moscow due to cultural differences in the region. As with most other situations that we have evaluated in the Soviet Union this group will suppressed in the name of party and state interests so it leads me to the questions of,

How was Ukraine’s diversity a blessing and a curse? How does multilinguality of the art from the region affect how Soviets should perceive it?Do ethnically diverse metropolitan regions intrinsically pose a threat to authoritarian rule?Do these artists by the nature of them not being outlets of the state therefore present a threat to Soviet national security? Or is state funded and controlled propaganda the only art that can coalesce to party interests? Specifically in relation to the Stalinist Soviet state.

Todays reading, seemed to follow a theme we’ve come to be familiar with in this course: creating a new society. It is very clear week after week that the Soviet officials are acting as entrepreneurs to create and market a new way of living. And no nation or group of nations can be complete without culture. Culture is such as affective way to instill pride and community within a group of peoples. Moreover, a cultured area of culture, the arts, have been used since the Paleolithic period. Just as it would be in any Soviet territory, the arts are used very tactically, as a tool. Mayhill Fowler states, “The arts were there-fore not a luxury, but rather a central component of the Soviet project. Consequently the state created, managed, and financially supported newspapers, journals, and arts institutions, all of which offered jobs for artists” (Fowler 58). The Soviet Union played patron to the arts to support artists in which ever media they create, however, it would not be the Soviet Union without some kinks due to hasty action. Moreover, it seems that a lot of artists in and coming out of the civil war were prolific in creating in a very close knit art scene, and many began to travel to the seemingly new artistic hub, Moscow. Specifically Mikhail Bulgakov lived in a new time where the arts had a significant place in society, and the government was funding their lives and careers. However, the art scene in Soviet Ukraine differed in significant ways, “First of all, many of the artists in Soviet Ukraine were also officials. As such, they invested as much in the creation of a new state as in the creation of a new culture” (Fowler 62). These two worlds of art existed at the same time and within the same “nation”, yet were influenced so differently.

1. How do the signifigant differences between artists in Moscow and Ukraine change the way in which we could see their art? How do their positions before and after the war effect the art and culture of the new societies?
2. Are the actions of Soviet Ukraine possibly treating to the doctrine of the Soviet Union? Does Soviet Ukraine do things better than the SU regarding cultural action and thought?
3. How does the Literary Fair support or reject the new society the SU is trying to create?
4. What is the significance of the close relationship the military has with the arts?

Going into this reading, I am sure we were all probably not surprised to find out how heavily involved the Soviet government was in theatre. We’ve already seen countless examples of government officials meddling in cultural practices. On page 83, Fowler says, “The GPU was actively involved in culture not only to suppress but also create a Soviet artistic culture.” In this chapter, we see the great lengths the Soviets go to suppress bad culture and create their own, but was it worth it from a Soviet perspective to pour all these resources into censoring theatre (or anything else related)? Personally, I’ll say yes since theatre can have such a profound impact on society. When it is good enough, people start to really discuss the contents. What does everyone else think?

The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin was an oppressive and totalitarian regime whose callousness and ineptitude led to innumerable atrocities. These atrocities are crystalized by the accounts of Mukhamet Shaiakhmetov in 1930s central asia. Farm collectivization forcibly removed food from the hands of farmers and then Soviet mismanagement of that food led to a national famine in the USSR. Mukhamet witnessed these policies in effect as his father was labeled a kulak and dispossessed and sent to work coal, not to mention the other atrocities that his family was forced to endure. We see first hand the Soviet dekulakization policy at play when the author recounts the confiscation “You still have some livestock, expensive things even gold hidden from authorities, hand them over!”(56) These actions were taken against more productive farmers as they were framed as enemies of state for being obstacles in the farming collectivization effort. Mukhamet details his and others confusion at the government’s persecution against people who were simple workers. In this class we have discussed Soviet policies at both a micro and macro scale, discussing both policy and how it affected individuals. However the scale of the atrocities committed in the name of collectivization are hard to fathom so does this memoir illicit a more comprehensive grasp on how these actions affected the lives of people confused about their designation as an enemy of the state? Also is there at least an element of immorality that is at play when discussing how the Soviets applied these policies or is it simple ineptitude?

The Silent Steppe is a heartbreaking story about the author who had to endure the most gruesome conditions ever. Not only did the author suffer under severe conditions, but he also lost family during the soviet’s policy. This book in my opinion is a very good read and also an eye-opening experience when reading this auto-biography. The quote I selected touches upon what we hit on in class based on the soviet policy which is known as Collectivization. ” The Immediate cause was a bad harvest following a period of drought- but collectivization made the consequences many times worse for the Kazakh people. Transferred Hastily and without any preparation to a settled way of life and method of farming, the nomadic livestock breeders simply did not have the means or expertise to run collective farms efficiently ” (Page 135 Chapter 15) Based on the statement made above do we think that Stalin and the Soviet Union could have changed or got rides of the policy that was in place? Also, what outcomes or effects could have this had within the region of Central Asia.

It seems as though though throughout this course the Soviets most often paint conflicts as class struggles, even when in reality the conflict may not have to do with class at all. An example of this is the Chust incident described in today’s reading. Northrop explains how “soviet analyst explained what happened in Chust through the prism of class conflict (Northrop, 148). “When the Chust affair was shoehorned into a class-based analytical scheme, it no longer signified broad-based popular resistance to the hujum or against Soviet power” (Northrop, 149). Northrop explains that the affair was more of a religious conflict and a response to soviet power that illustrated the fact that many people opposed Soviet rule. So, my question is how does this misinterpretation effect Soviet officials and policy makers residing over Uzbek?