Page 188 - Vinkler, Jonatan, Ana Beguš and Marcello Potocco. Eds. 2019. Ideology in the 20th Century: Studies of literary and social discourses and practices. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 188
Ideology in the 20th Century: studies of literary and social discourses and practices
Although varying in narrative style and subgenre, these authors were
selected either due to their declarations of enthusiasm for communism
and Stalin, or due to the manner in which their literature could be lik-
ened to socialist ideology. Hence, among the authors accepted by socialist
realism, there were many authors whose works were not based on realism
at all. The internationalist mission of socialist realism was as dogmatic as
it was impure, and engaged in a constant pursuit not to dissolve the im-
purities within its system, but transform them into assimilable compo-
nents, in a true “tendency towards homogenization” (Goldiș 2018b, 88).
A process of incorporation that was also visible in the communist states
of Eastern Europe, applied this time to their own literatures, which were
struggling to establish their local socialist literary canon. A good example
188 in this regard is the debate over Ion Creangă, one of the most important
Romanian nineteenth-century fiction writers. His alleged class struggle
was put forward by socialist realist critic Al. N. Trestieni in 1946, who ar-
gued that his children’s prose, drawing on folktales and fantasy, has de-
picted “under the guise of fantasy … genuine exploiter typologies” (Simi-
on et al. 2010–2018 V 186).
This kind of argument was used to align every possible genre fiction
and consumption literature with socialist realism standards, encompass-
ing a range of European and American classics of detective, adventure, SF
and fantasy novels. The inherent escapism of those subgenres was largely
ignored by the Soviet translation programs despite their natural incom-
patibility with strict, rigid, and formulaic literature. As Mihai Iovănel
notes, referring to Stalinist Romania, “limiting the genres and, in turn,
Western competition, allowed for genres such as detective novels to thrive
considerably in comparison to the pre-communist tradition” (2014, 165).
Which is quite controversial considering Evgeny Dobrenko’s suggestion
that inside socialist realism “science fiction is ‘nonsense’” (1997, 154).
The list published in Adevărul vremii features different authors of
genre fiction, covering adventure novels, dystopian fiction, military Sci-
ence-Fiction, horror stories and space exploration novels. And it also
brought forward authors of children’s literature, this genre too being
quite diverse. This is the reason why I find it important to place more
emphasis on the functions of literature within socialist realism, a mat-
ter Gary Saul Morson stressed in his brilliant 1979 essay Socialist Realism
and Literary Theory. It is crucial to understand that literature, despite the
very precise ideological purpose the Soviet culture attributed to it (Tuck-
er 1974), never actually fulfilled only one function.
Although varying in narrative style and subgenre, these authors were
selected either due to their declarations of enthusiasm for communism
and Stalin, or due to the manner in which their literature could be lik-
ened to socialist ideology. Hence, among the authors accepted by socialist
realism, there were many authors whose works were not based on realism
at all. The internationalist mission of socialist realism was as dogmatic as
it was impure, and engaged in a constant pursuit not to dissolve the im-
purities within its system, but transform them into assimilable compo-
nents, in a true “tendency towards homogenization” (Goldiș 2018b, 88).
A process of incorporation that was also visible in the communist states
of Eastern Europe, applied this time to their own literatures, which were
struggling to establish their local socialist literary canon. A good example
188 in this regard is the debate over Ion Creangă, one of the most important
Romanian nineteenth-century fiction writers. His alleged class struggle
was put forward by socialist realist critic Al. N. Trestieni in 1946, who ar-
gued that his children’s prose, drawing on folktales and fantasy, has de-
picted “under the guise of fantasy … genuine exploiter typologies” (Simi-
on et al. 2010–2018 V 186).
This kind of argument was used to align every possible genre fiction
and consumption literature with socialist realism standards, encompass-
ing a range of European and American classics of detective, adventure, SF
and fantasy novels. The inherent escapism of those subgenres was largely
ignored by the Soviet translation programs despite their natural incom-
patibility with strict, rigid, and formulaic literature. As Mihai Iovănel
notes, referring to Stalinist Romania, “limiting the genres and, in turn,
Western competition, allowed for genres such as detective novels to thrive
considerably in comparison to the pre-communist tradition” (2014, 165).
Which is quite controversial considering Evgeny Dobrenko’s suggestion
that inside socialist realism “science fiction is ‘nonsense’” (1997, 154).
The list published in Adevărul vremii features different authors of
genre fiction, covering adventure novels, dystopian fiction, military Sci-
ence-Fiction, horror stories and space exploration novels. And it also
brought forward authors of children’s literature, this genre too being
quite diverse. This is the reason why I find it important to place more
emphasis on the functions of literature within socialist realism, a mat-
ter Gary Saul Morson stressed in his brilliant 1979 essay Socialist Realism
and Literary Theory. It is crucial to understand that literature, despite the
very precise ideological purpose the Soviet culture attributed to it (Tuck-
er 1974), never actually fulfilled only one function.
