Stalin Era Intellectuals: Culture and Stalinism

285 Pages·2022·7.36 MB·English

by  Vesa Oittinen, Elina Viljanen

“This is a most timely book! For some, the collapse of the USSR may have receded
in a distant past, but in fact it is very recent. Since 1991, a complicated triple task
of scouring the archives, deconstructing the meta-narrative of philosophy during
the Soviet, particularly the Stalin period, and undoing the Cold War counter-ste-
reotypes in Western academia, has come into full swing. This book consists of
contributions by a long list of specialists who revisit familiar names as well as
introduce new ones. It states an interim score, but as a pioneering work also points
towards future scholarly work.”
Evert van der Zweerde, Radboud
University, Nijmegen

Stalin Era Intellectuals
This book focuses on the extent to which Soviet scholars and cultural theoreticians
were able to act autonomously during the Stalin era. The authors question how
we should consider certain intellectual achievements which took place despite the
pressure of Stalinism, and how best to recognise and describe such achievements.
The chapters in this book offer suggestions for new interpretations on Soviet
philosophy of science and humanities, linguistics, philosophy, musicology,
literature and mathematics from the point of view of general cultural theory. In
this way, they challenge the received image of the Stalin-era humanities which
reduces them into mere propaganda. Intended for scholars of Russian and Soviet
studies, this book will dispel many received views about the character of Stalinism
and Soviet culture.
Vesa Oittinen is a professor emeritus of Russian philosophy and intellectual his-
tory at the Aleksanteri Institute (University of Helsinki). His publications focus
on the history of philosophy, especially Spinoza, German classical philosophy
and Marxism, and on Russian and Soviet philosophy.
Elina Viljanen is a postdoctoral scholar at the Aleksanteri Institute (University
of Helsinki). Holding a PhD in musicology, she specialises in Russian intellectual
history of music and Soviet culture.
Studies in Contemporary Russia
Series Editor: Markku Kivinen
Studies in Contemporary Russia is a series of cutting-edge, contemporary studies.
These monographs, joint publications and edited volumes branch out into various
disciplines, innovatively combining research methods and theories to approach
the core questions of Russian modernisation; how do the dynamics of resources
and rules affect the Russian economy and what are the prospects and needs of
diversification? What is the impact of the changing state-society relationship?
How does the emerging welfare regime work? What is the role of Russia in
contemporary international relations? How should we understand the present
Russian political system? What is the philosophical background of modernisation
as a whole and its Russian version in particular?
The variety of opinions on these issues is vast. Some see increasingly less
difference between contemporary Russia and the Soviet Union while, at the other
extreme, prominent experts regard Russia as a ‘more or less’ normal European state.
At the same time new variants of modernisation are espoused as a result of Russian
membership of the global BRIC powers. Combining aspects of Western and Soviet
modernisation with some anti-modern or traditional tendencies the Russian case is ideal
for probing deeper into the evolving nature of modernisation. Which of the available
courses Russia will follow remains an open question, but these trajectories provide the
alternatives available for discussion in this ground-breaking and authoritative series.
The editor and the editorial board of the series represent the Finnish Centre of
Excellence in Russian Studies: Choices of Russian Modernisation.
Complaints to the Authorities in Russia
A Trap Between Tradition and Legal Modernization
Elena Bogdanova
Russia’s Cultural Statecraft
Edited by Tuomas Forsberg and Sirke Mäkinen
Studies in Contemporary Journalism and Communication in Russia’s
Provinces
Edited by Greg Simons and Anna Sumskaya
Stalin Era Intellectuals
Culture and Stalinism
Edited by Vesa Oittinen and Elina Viljanen
For more information about this series, please visit: www .routledge .com /series /
ASHSER -1421
Stalin Era Intellectuals
Culture and Stalinism
Edited by Vesa Oittinen and
Elina Viljanen
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter Vesa Oittinen and Elina Viljanen;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Vesa Oittinen and Elina Viljanen to be identified as the authors
of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-032-11420-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-11421-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-21983-5 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003219835
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
Contents
Editors ix
List of contributors x
Contact information xiii
Acknowledgements xiv
1 Introduction: On Soviet Intellectual Culture during the Stalin Era 1
ELINA VILJANEN AND VESA OITTINEN
2 Fighting Avant-Garde with Phenomenology: Gustav Shpet’s
‘New Realism’ 22
LIISA BOURGEOT
3 Stalin and Philosophy in Soviet Russia 36
MARINA F. BYKOVA
4 ‘Menshevising Idealism’ and Stalinisation of Philosophy 57
VESA OITTINEN
5 The Naked Truth of Fact: Andrey Platonov on the Margins of
Factography 74
MARIA CHEHONADSKIH
6 Everyday Symphonism: Boris Asafiev’s Soviet Theory of
Popular Music 90
ELINA VILJANEN
7 Confronting Modernism in the Stalin Era: Mikhail Lifshits as
Critic and Philosopher of Culture 114
SASCHA FREYBERG
viii Contents
8 Maxim Gorky as Spokesman for Proletarian Humanism 136
JUTTA SCHERRER
9 Sofya Yanovskaya in Defence of Abstractions: Between Soviet
Ideology and Bourgeois Idealism 156
TATIANA LEVINA
10 The Anti-Fascist Cultural Theory of Nikolai Bukharin and the
Concept of Socialist Humanism 175
VESA OITTINEN AND ELINA VILJANEN
11 Nikolay Marr’s Theory of Language and Konstantin
Megrelidze’s Historical Science of Thought 202
ELENE LADARIA
12 Between Critique and Conformism: The Languages and
Cultures of Caste and Nation in Stalin-Era Indology 218
CRAIG BRANDIST
13 Stalinism, War, and Artistic Representation of Reality:
Konstantin Simonov’s Critique of the ‘System of Silence’ in 1956 239
SUSAN IKONEN
Index 263
Editors
Vesa Oittinen is Professor Emeritus of Russian Philosophy and Intellectual
History at the Aleksanteri Institute (University of Helsinki). His publications
focus on the history of philosophy, especially Spinoza, German classical phi-
losophy and Marxism, and on Russian and Soviet philosophy. He has pub-
lished and edited several works on the Soviet era philosophy, such as the edited
volumes Evald Ilyenkov’s Philosophy Reconsidered (2000), Dialectics of the
Ideal (ed. Alex Levant, Brill 2014) and The Practical Essence of Man (ed. with
Andrey Maidansky, Brill 2016).
Elina Viljanen is a postdoctoral scholar at the Aleksanteri Institute (University
of Helsinki). Holding a PhD in musicology, she specialises in Russian intellec-
tual history of music and Soviet culture. Viljanen’s recent publications include
‘The Formation of Soviet Cultural Theory of Music (1917–1948)’ in Studies
in East European Thought (Brill, 2020, 72[2]), ‘The First Conservative Turn:
from Silver Age to Stalinism’ in What Was to Be Done? Antinomies of Russian
Modernisation (ed. Markku Kivinen and Brendan Humphreys., Routledge,
2021) and ‘Soviet Legacies and Global Contexts: Classical Music and Russia’s
Cultural Statecraft’ in Russia’s Cultural Statecraft (ed. Tuomas Forsberg and
Sirke Mäkinen, Routledge, 2022).