Socrealistų kalvė: jaunųjų rašytojų mokymai ankstyvuoju sovietmečiu

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Rašytojai, jaunieji; Sovietmetis; Mokymai; Konsultantai; Sovietinė literatūra.

ENThis study builds on the claim that while Socialist Realism drew on one Moscow-based doctrine, it manifested itself in different national versions; it is therefore relevant to examine how Socialist Realism was practiced in Lithuania - to explore its origins, institutional consolidation, and literary specifics. This chapter of the monograph discusses one aspect of the process: the Socialist Realist training sessions that were held for young writers during the early Soviet period. Analyzing the archives of the Young Writers’ Unit and regional clubs (meeting records, work plans and reports, speeches from republic-level conferences, and hundreds of letters between new writers and official state literary consultants), the author asks what methods and arguments the Lithuanian SSR Writers’ Union - the central literary institution during that era - used in its efforts to shape local experts in Socialist Realist technique. The chapter presents the network of educational institutions that was formed (young writers’ units, lower level clubs), identifies problems related to its activities (the sluggishness of members, their ambivalence about ideological training, their inability in or resistance to applying Socialist Realist methods, and their conflicted relationships to the doctrine - acceptance, rejection, or formal deception).The analysis also considers efforts by another type of new author (amateurs lacking cultural education) to apply Socialist Realism and the literary consultants’ attitudes (a combination of ideological criteria and aesthetic exigency). The author argues that this imported Soviet system for training youth failed to achieve the quantitative and qualitative dimensions that importance to “educating” younger generations, while a large portion of their younger colleagues lacked a sufficient feeling of collectivity - they did not identify solely with Socialist Realist ideology or aesthetics, using these in an “applied” rather than a creative manner. In the process of the shaping of new Socialist Realists during this early Soviet period, a strong tension arose between the new "creative method" and enduring pre-Soviet literary traditions. [From the publication]

• Maintaining power through language correction: a case of L1 education in Post-Soviet Lithuania / Loreta Vaicekauskienė. Language prescription: values, ideologies and identity / edited by Don Chapman and Jacob D. Rawlins. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 2020. P. 145-170.
• The Lithuanian version of Socialist Realism: an imposed doctrine and incorporated tradition / Dalia Satkauskytė. Slavic review. 2022, Vol. 81, no. 4, p. 936-954.