COURAGE

connecting collections

The described materials are an example of the jurisdiction of the Ideological Commission and present its activities in the field of press and radio. In the preparatory materials for the session, a number of daily newspapers (Vjesnik, Borba, Večernji vjesnik, Slobodna Dalmacija, Glas Slavonije, Novi list) were analysed in general and then the coverage and quality of the topics and also the criticisms of theatre, film, literature, fine arts, music, education, adult education and cultural-mass work were specifically examined. The materials were then discussed at the session itself. It is important to note that the session was also attended by writers of the cultural columns of the aforementioned newspapers, thus directly addressing the criticisms and guidelines for future work.

The editorial boards of the newspapers were criticized for considerable ambiguity and vagueness in the field of culture and the arts and were asked to hire journalists specializing in a specific field of the art who would write from the socialist standpoint. Also, the members of the Ideological Commission believed that the press was pro-Western and uncritically served texts from the foreign press (an example after Camus's death, when "the press wrote a great deal, but without the trying to put the writer in his proper place in the literature, and especially given his socio-political position in the life of contemporary France"). Cinema sections were criticized for only transcribing descriptions of foreign films from foreign editions and writing sensationalist pieces about movie stars and movies, indulging the tastes of the widest audience (the blatant adulation for to the film "Some Like It Hot," for example). The Commission wanted the direction of writing to turn more toward achievements in the USSR and India, which the Commission’s members called "advanced directions and attempts" and the "struggle between old and new understandings." Film criticism, it was believed, should first and foremost provide a preliminary ideological rating of the film and take into consideration its social role.

Also, the Censorship Commission hardly permitted a tourist documentary for the domestic market, although not for the overseas because it is " bourgeois and shows our circumstances."

The members of the Commission also had a role as censors, which is shown by the example of Ivan Šibl, who excised a text by Nela Eržišnik from a television magazine because her work was considered "babbling of the most petit bourgeois kind." It should be said that "bourgeois" in the communist view implied a wide range of behaviours that deviated from the proclaimed one and which retained the characteristics communists associated with civil society traditions. That term, in fact, became an insult to whomever it was applied. For example, many things were in principle deemed as expressing the "petit bourgeois mentality": from greetings on the street such as "sir," "gentlemen," "kiss the hands," "m'lady," etc., instead of "comrade," through the use of protection and privilege, "hierarchical gathering," criticisms, servility toward foreigners, corruption and drunkenness, to more severe offenses and crimes.

In literary criticism, there was a call to change the way in which books by domestic authors are covered – so that criticism affectionately welcomes the works of domestic authors just “as it greets a multitude of works an often problematic foreign origin.”. As to art criticism, the view was expressed that genuine art criticism does not exist in the press, but that there were numerous problems: the professional, moral and creative quality of the critics, the ambiguities of aesthetic criteria and the issue of educating the artistic taste of the audience.

Although the document does not mention the persons who did not act in line with the required ideological course, it is an important indicator of the existence of cultural influences and activities in variance with  what was accepted and therefore unsuitable for the LCC Ideological Commission, which often criticized them. By 1995, the document was, along with the other records of socio-political organisations, a part of the Archive of the Institute of History of the Labour Movement of Croatia/Institute of Contemporary History. That year, in July, it was turned over to the Croatian State Archives (CSA) where it is kept today. The documents are accessible for use without any restrictions. 

At the 5th Congress of the Latvian Soviet Writers' Union in December 1965, the younger generation of writers and the more liberal section of the older generation managed to oust from the Union's Executive Board the five most notorious defenders of Socialist Realism and the Communist Party line in literature. A more liberal leadership of the Union was elected. In speeches at the congress, the younger generation of writers spoke out in favor of more creative freedom, against censorship, for the rehabilitation of the pre-Soviet literary heritage, and about the possibilities of getting more information about Latvian exile literature and world literature in general, and protested against the ban on the Jāņi midsummer festival. Although the Latvian Communist Party Central Committee was unhappy with the results of the congress, it had to put up with them. The congress was an important turning point in Latvian literature, and in the history of the Writers' Union, which changed from being an obedient follower of the Communist Party into an organization which was willing and able (although within certain limits) to defend creative freedom and the national culture.

This painting is part of the series Compoziţii (Compositions), which contributed decisively to Hans Mattis-Teutsch’s international fame at the beginning of the 1920s (Almási 2001, 29). The work reflects the tendency towards the abstract visible in his creative work in that period, marked by the artist’s involvement in the expressionist group Der Sturm in Berlin (Mesea 2009, 23–24). The rhythmic character of his works has made certain art historians characterise his style as “musical expressionism” (Gassner 2001, 45; Mesea 2009, 24). The natural motifs present in his work before the 1920s are turned in this series into abstract forms. The paintings in this series, which were very well received both by the general public and by art specialists in the interwar period, were not exhibited during the first part of the communist period, because avant-garde art was considered “decadent” and “bourgeois” by the new regime (Popica 2015, 3). Nevertheless, the Art Museum in Braşov (which at the time was a section of the Braşov Regional Museum) purchased certain paintings in this series (including the one described here) in the years 1967–1968, in the context of a relative liberalisation of the cultural policies of the communist regime. None of these works was exhibited as part of the museum’s permanent collection, which shows that Mattis-Teutsch’s recuperation during this liberalisation period was limited.

Although it is not officially dated, Muncitor forestier (Forestry Worker) was probably painted in the late 1940s or early 1950s, when its author was trying to adapt his artistic creation to the new cultural policies. From the point of view of the technique used, the painting combines tempera and oil painting on plywood. According to the art historian Radu Popica, the painting Muncitor forestier (Forestry Worker) illustrates the “difficulties” encountered by Mattis-Teutsch in the process of adapting to socialist realism (Popica 2015, 12). The artist tried to combine techniques of his art from the 1930s with the precepts of socialist realism. However, this synthesis, called by the artist “constructive-realism,” failed to convince the authorities (Popica 2015, 13). As has been observed by Dan-Octavian Breaz, although Mattis-Teutsch’s art in the 1930s suggested the “new man” of socialist realism, the modernist techniques used by Mattis-Teutsch were in fact incompatible with socialist realism, because they were unsuitable for the purpose that art was supposed to serve in the new society (Breaz 2013, 124). This explains the negative reception of Mattis-Teutsch’s artistic creation in the 1950s, despite his honest attempts to integrate into the new cultural context.

The work belongs to Hans Mattis-Teutsch’s constructivist period. According to the art historian Gheorghe Vida, constructivism was assimilated by Mattis-Teutsch at the time of his involvement in the Romanian avant-garde during the 1920s and at the beginning of the 1930s (Vida 2009, 80). During this period, Mattis-Teutsch collaborated closely with groups of avant-garde artists formed around the cultural publications Contimporanul, Integral and Alge, sharing the artistic vision of these groups, as well as their socialist views. His artistic vision marked by constructivism was theorised in his work Kunstideologie. Stabilität und Aktivität im Kunstwerk published in interwar Germany (Mattis-Teutsch 1931). This vision, which sees art as a “messenger” of the “new man” in the “technological era without traditions,” is marked by the mobility and rhythm of modern life (Mattis-Teutsch 1977, 76–79). The work and rhythms specific to modern man are also central themes in this painting from the end of the 1920s, and the title of the work is a direct reference to the relationship between intellectuals and the proletariat in Marxist ideology. As with all the works of Hans Mattis-Teutsch created during the interwar period, this item could not be displayed during the 1950s due to the fact that the avant-garde techniques were in contradiction with socialist realism.

The handwritten letter from Matulaitis to the Academy of Sciences. In the letter, he criticises the Academy and the Institute of History. The letter (written in 1950) reflects very well the situation of Lithuanian historians during the late Stalinist period. Matulaitis, who spoke out about the need to research the history of the Lithuanian nation, came under pressure, was accused of ‘bourgeois nationalism’, and was dismissed from his job.

“Literature and the Cominform” is a newspaper article written by Predrag Matvejević (Mostar, 7 October 1932 – Zagreb, 2 February 2017) in which he critically reviews the breaking of the taboo on the Tito-Stalin Split (Yugoslav-Soviet Split) in 1948 and the Goli otok prison camp, and their analysis in Yugoslav literature, theatre and film in the early 1980s.    

The review was published in magazine Start on 24 April 1982. It was founded by newspaper company Vjesnik on 29 January 1969 as a semi-monthly automobile magazine. In the period 1969-1972, when it was edited by Andrinko Krile, such topics were soon left behind, and the magazine focused on interviews about topics avoided in other magazines, and by the mid-1970s it became a magazine that covered politics, culture and the media, to which the most prominent Croatian journalists and intellectuals contributed. Krile was removed from his post as a member of the Croatian Spring, and it was assessed that Start had “succumbed to the base impact of the West and was a part of the Westernisation of Croatia.” According to Božidar Novak, after the Croatian Spring was suppressed, the magazine was rigidly censured, and until the July 1973 it was obliged to pay the so-called “trash tax.” In the period 1973-1980, under editor Sead Saračević, it acquired a new form and journalistic expression. Topics like so-called high culture were added, the works of the world’s top artistic photographers were regularly published, and a prominent place was accorded to feuilletons on political and historical themes. In the period 1980-1987, under editor Mladen Pleše, the magazine focused on new topics such as rock and roll and it highlighted the writings of social analysts and covered sensitive domestic policy topics. This put the magazine in a difficult position, because the political leadership maintained strict watch to ensure that the policy of “With Tito after Tito” was not violated. Political pressure continued when liberal and critical politicians and scholars began to speak in the magazine’s pages. The magazine continued to come out until 22 June 1991.             

The article described above, like many other articles published in Start encompassed in the collection, are available for research and copying.