Vado įvaizdis kaip galios įteisinimas socrealistinėje lietuvių literatūroje

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Vadai; Įvaizdis; Galia; Įteisinimai; Sovietinė literatūra; Socialistinis realizmas.

ENSocialist Realism claimed to offer a reflection of reality, but what it really did was present a simulacrum of reality which it programmatically called “socialist reality.” One of the most distinct expressions of this “socialist reality” perspective in literature became the image of the leader and its role in the legitimation of authority. This literature was based on falsified biographies of Lenin and Stalin. Socialist Realist literature inscribed the image of the leader within the hagiographic tradition. While literary representations of Lenin and Stalin blend characteristics of the political ruler and the religious leader (Christ), the leaders’ aliases appear in Socialist Realist texts as prototypes of a new form of human. Relations between the individual and the godly, the leader and the masses, were expressed as a two-way relationship between the “family” leader and the people, and imagined as a form of divine care and worship of the caregiver. Socialist Realist literature celebrated the leader’s titanic powers and projected them onto his monumental portrait. Two sub-themes emerged from this saintly image: the ability of the leaders’ words to alter reality and the related fetishizing of portraits, sculptures, autographs, as well as pilgrimages to their mausoleums and birthplaces. The leader is immortal, because he lives on through his words.Directing the will of the masses toward the goal of communism, his word and his power can create heavenly bliss on Earth. Each individual makes heroic sacrifices to help attain this goal of universal welfare. The theme of the innocent victim in Socialist Realist children’s literature is frequent and is loosely related to descriptions of the lives of the saints. This study examines these aspects of the image of the leader in Lithuanian Socialist Realist literature and draws attention to shifts in this image in the post-Stalinist period. As still unknown or poorly known texts, such as Juozas Grušas’s Diktatorius (The Dictator, written about 1951-1952, published 1991) are discovered, the rebellion against leader-worship that was both generated and suppressed in that same era is interwoven into the Soviet period’s dominantly idolatrous tone. [From the publication]