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The Stalin Prize and the Soviet Artist: Status Symbol or Stigma?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Oliver Johnson
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Abstract

How did the Stalin Prize function in the Soviet fine art establishment of the 1940s and 1950s and how were the awards interpreted by members of the artistic community and the public? This examination of the discussions of the Stalin Prize Committee and unrehearsed responses to the awards reveals an institution that operated at the intersection of political and expert-artistic standards within which the parameters of postwar socialist realism were negotiated and to some extent defined. The Stalin Prize for the Fine Arts played an important part in the development of the leader cult and contributed to the self-aggrandizement of an elite minority. The symbolic capital of the Stalin Prize was compromised by its role, perceived or actual, in the consolidation of a generational and ideological hegemony within the Soviet art world and the establishment of an aesthetic blueprint for socialist realism.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 70 , Issue 4 , Winter 2011 , pp. 819 - 843
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2011

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References

Epigraph taken from the introductory comments of Aleksandr Fadeev, chairman of the Stalin Prize Committee for the arts, to the opening meeting of the committee for the 1948 round of selections, 17January 1949, Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstva (RGALI), Komitet po Stalinskim premiiam pri Sovete Ministrov SSSR v oblasti literatury i iskusstva, f. 2073, op. 1, d. 30,1. 8.

1. The connection between pre- and postrevolutionary incarnations of the Academy was long established at the Leningrad Academy, which was reformed as an All-Russian institution in 1933. In 1939 the Academy published an exhibition catalogue that traced the history of the Academy from its founding under Catherine the Great to the present day, and proudly declared, "We are 175 years old!" Vsemssiiskaia Akademiia khudozhestv, 1764-1939 (Leningrad, 1939), 1. S. M. Chervonnaia has observed that such a position "cast doubt on the correctness and necessity of one of the first acts of Soviet power, namely the Resolution on the Liquidation of the Imperial Academy of the Arts." S. M. Chervonnaia, Akademiia khudozhestv i regiony Rossii (Moscow, 2004), 114.

2. Boime, Albert, “The Prix de Rome: Images of Authority and Threshold of Official Success,” Art Journal 44, no. 3 (Autumn 1984): 281–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Boime describes the Academie de France as "a kind of colonial headquarters for the extraction of aesthetic wealth" and com-ments on the strict aesthetic regime imposed upon its visiting students. Ibid., 283-84.

3. Ibid., 282.

4. Bourdieu, Pierre, The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field, trans. Emanuel, Susan (Stanford, 1996), 225–26.Google Scholar

5. English, James, The Economy of Prestige: Prizes, Awards, and the Circulation of Cultural Value (Cambridge, Mass., 2005), 187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Tomoff, Kiril, Creative Union: The Professional Organization of Soviet Composers, 1939-1953 (Ithaca, 2006)Google Scholar, and Tomoff, , “Most Respected Comrade…': Patrons, Clients, Brokers and Unofficial Networks in the Stalinist Music World,” Contemporary European History 11, no. 1 (February 2002): 33–65 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Frolova-Walker, "Elite Conversation on Art for the People: Music in the Stalin Prize Committee" (paper presented at American Museological Society Convention, Philadelphia, 12 November 2009), and Frolova-Walker, , “Stalin and the Art of Boredom,” Twentieth-Century Music, no. 1 (2004): 101–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a discussion of the Stalin Prize for the sciences, see Pollock, Ethan, Stalin and the Soviet Science Wars (Princeton, 2006), 1–14.Google Scholar

7. Tomoff, Creative Union, 248.

8. A mid-1950s document relating to the development of the Lenin Prize (a post-Stalin replacement for the previous awards scheme) includes an extensive report on the Nobel Prize including statistical data relating to the nationality of its laureates. In comparison with Germany's 38, England's 22, and France and the United States' 18, Russia's single award to Ivan Bunin (in emigration) in 1936 (just 0.8 percent of the awards presented) appears to have been an issue of some frustration for the Soviet Union. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhivsotsial'no-politicheskoi istorii (RGASPI), Lichnyi arkhivMolotova, f. 82, op. 2, d. 467,11. 9-20. James English attributes the rise of the modern prize institution to what he describes as "Nobel envy," whereby "every field, every subfield of culture would feel the need to have its own Nobel." English, Economy of Prestige, 29.

9. “Postanovlenie Soveta narodnykh komissarov Soiuza SSR: Ob uchrezhdenii premii i stipendii imeni Stalina,” Pravda, 21 December 1939, taken from Svin'in, V F. and Oseev, K. A., eds., Stalinskie premii: Dve storony odnoi medali (Novosibirsk, 2007), 711.Google Scholar This valuable book contains a compilation of published material and archival documents connected with the Stalin Prize awards in the field of culture, as well as extensive statistical and biographical information about the Stalin Prize Committee, the awards, and their laureates.

10. "Ob izmenenii poriadka prisuzhdeniia Stalinskikh premii po nauke, izobreteniiam, literature i iskusstvu," Pravda, 12 January 1941, taken from Svin'in and Oseev, eds., Stalinskie premii, 43-44.

11. The number of fields expanded over the years to include previously unrecog-nized areas including graphics and documentary cinema. Ibid.

12. Fitzpatrick, Sheila, Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times. Soviet Russia in the 1930s (New York, 1999), 106–9.Google Scholar

13. For an analysis of socialist competition and its application in a flagship construction project, see Stephen Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as Civilization (Berkeley, 1997), 204-5.

14. Tomoff describes the four tides that were conferred upon members of the creative intelligentsia: People's Artist of the Soviet Union; People's Artist of the Republic; Honored Figure of the Arts; and Honored Artist. The most prestigious of these awards was People's Artist of the Soviet Union, which could be conferred only by the all-union government. Tomoff, Creative Union, 236-45.

15. Early Pravda articles about the Stalin Prize advertised the award as an open competition and provided the address of the Stalin Prize Committee for the submission of nominations. "V Komitetakh po Stalinskim premiiam," Pravda, 16 December 1941 and 10 December 1943. Arguing for the importance of the selection committee following a review in 1952, Fadeev described its role as "a social path of preparation for granting prizes." Cited in Tomoff, Creative Union, 263.

16. The composition of the committee was reviewed in February 1947 and again in 1952, after the committee had been threatened with liquidation following an investigation into its activities by the Department of Literature and Art headed by V. Kruzhkov. "O rabote Komiteta po Stalinskim premiiam v oblasti iskusstva i literatury," in Svin'in and Oseev, eds., Stalinskie premii, 438-44. See also Tomoff's analysis of the 1952 investigation in Creative Union, 262-65.

17. Tomoff, Creative Union, 246.

18. Ibid., 265. Galina Yankovskaya, in her analysis of the economic structure of the Soviet art establishment, has described the Stalin Prize for the arts as an institution that "decisively positioned hierarchy and status as the dominant qualities of Stalinist culture." See Galina Yankovskaya, "The Economic Dimensions of Art in the Stalinist Era: Artists' Cooperatives in the Grip of Ideology and the Plan," Slavic Review 65, no. 4 (Winter 2006): 783. See also Galina Yankovskaia, Iskusstvo, den'gi i politika: Khudozhnik v godakh pozdnego Stalinizma (Perm', 2007). On the suppression of criticism, see, for example, V. Sazhin, "Against Naturalism in Paindng," Komsomolskaia pravda, 6 July 1948, and a meeting called to discuss the article at the Moscow Artists' Union, "Stenographic Report of a Meeting of the Secretariat of MOSSKh," 16 July 1948, in RGALI, Moskovskaia organizatsiia soiuz khudozhnikov RSFSR, f. 2943, op. 1, d. 505.

19. For the 1949 list of recommendations, see Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (GARF), f. 5508, op. 2, d. 801.

20. RGASPI, Komitet po delam iskusstv pri Sovete Ministrov SSSR, f. 17, op. 132, d. 245,1. 20.

21. RGALI, f. 2073, op. 1, d. 25.

22. RGASPI, Upravlenie propagandy i agitatsii TsK VKP(b), f. 17, op. 125, d. 400. After 1951, the artists Sergei Gerasimov, Vasilii Efanov, Boris Ioganson, and Dementii Shmarinov and the cultural theorist Vladimir Kemenov were added to the newly formed Art Section (Izo-sektsiia) of the committee. The structure of the committee comes under discussion in a 1952 investigation by Goskontrol'. See RGASPI, f. 17, op. 133, d. 345, 11.175-78.

23. Svin'in and Oseev, eds., Stalinskiepremii, 852.

24. Tomoff has noted that the dominance of certain personalities within the committee was understood to be one of its major shortcomings. Fadeev expressed this very concern in his 1952 report, in which he singled out Ivan Bol'shakov as an offender in the field of cinema. Tomoff, Creative Union, 264.

25. Grabar' and Mukhina came under attack on 27 May 1952 for their failure to support the struggle for realist art. "O rabote Komiteta po Stalinskim premiiam v oblasti iskusstva i literatury," 438. Kruzhkov's conclusions are based on Fadeev's report to Stalin on the activities of the committee, a report in which Fadeev complains about Grabar"s and Mukhina's behavior. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 133, d. 345, 1. 165. A wider smear campaign was carried out against Grabar' in the Institute of Art History in 1947, where he was denounced for his proclivity toward western art. GARF, f. 5446, op. 54, d. 40,11. 216-19.

26. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 125, d. 587,1. 8.

27. RGALI, f. 2073, op. 1, d. 30,1. 391.

28. Svin'in and Oseev, eds., Stalinskiepremii, 39-43.

29. Ibid., 438-44.

30. RGALI, f. 2073, op. 1, d. 25,1. 66.

31. Ibid., 1.68.

32. Ibid., 1. 70.

33. Lampard, Marie Turbow, “Sergei Konenkov: An Introduction,” in Lampard, Marie Turbow, Bowlt, John, and Salmond, Wendy R., eds., The Uncommon Vision of Sergei Konen-kov, 1874-1971: A Russian Sculptor and His Times (New Brunswick, N.J., 2001), 3–53.Google Scholar

34. RGALI, f. 2073, op. 1, d. 25,11. 15-17.

35. Yankovskaya, "The Economic Dimensions of Art," 785. It is likely that as presi-dents of the Stalin Prize Committee and the Subcommittee on Art, respectively, Fadeev and Gerasimov carried a degree of answerability for the decisions of the group that other members were less constrained by.

36. "O rabote Komiteta po Stalinskim premiiam v oblasti iskusstva i literatury," 438.

37. RGALI, f. 2073, op. 1, d. 25,1. 340.

38. RGALI, f. 2073, op. 1, d. 30,1. 397.

39. RGALI, f. 2073, op. 1, d. 28,1. 33.

40. For an examination of the convoluted process by which Laktionov became the surprise recipient of a Stalin Prize in 1948, see Johnson, Oliver, “'A Premonition of Victory': A Letter from the Front ,” Russian Review 68, no. 3 (July 2009): 408–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 125, d. 587,11. 25, 64-66.

42. "Iz vospominanii D. T. Shepilova: Stalin i inzhenery chelovecheskikh dush," Voprosy islorii, 1998, nos. 3-7, taken from Svin'in and Oseev, eds., Stalinskie premii, 603.

43. In 1947, just 50 percent of the Stalin Prize Committee's recommendations received an award, none of them in the correct category, while in 1949, 62 percent received an award, three of them in the correct category. See RGALI, f. 2073, op. 1, d. 28,1. 33 for the 1947 round of voting, and RGASPI, f. 82, op. 2, d. 467,1. 71 for the 1949 round of voting.

44. RGALI, f. 2073, op. 1, d. 35,11. 198-99.

45. Ibid.

46. Yankovskaya, "The Economic Dimensions of Art," 790.

47. For a furdier examination of the responses of the Stalin Prize Committee to works of the leader cult, see ibid., 785-86.

48. Jan Plamper has analyzed the oxymoronic nature of a Bolshevik personality cult and demonstrated that a meticulous process of orchestration was carried out by Stalin and other leaders in order to conceal the artificial nature of cult promotion and development. Plamper, , Alkhimiia vlasti: Kul't Stalina v izobrazitel'nom iskusstue (Moscow, 2010), 190–208.Google Scholar

49. Heller, Leonid, “A World of Prettiness: Socialist Realism and Its Aesthetic Categories,” in Lahusen, Thomas and Dobrenko, Evgeny, eds., Socialist Realism without Shores (Durham, 1997), 58.Google Scholar

50. "Radiokontsert posviashchennyi laureatom Stalinskogo premii," Pravda, 17 March 1941, and "Vruchenie diplomov deiateliam iskusstva—laureatom Stalinskikh premii," Pravda, 22 April 1941, taken from Svin'in and Oseev, Staliniskie premii, 66-68.

51. For a stenographic report from the ceremony for the 1948 awards held in March 1949, see RGALI, f. 2073, op. 1, d. 35,11.17-29.

52. Svin'in and Oseev, eds., Stalinskiepremii, 174-86.

53. For an anecdotal account of Gerasimov's generous donation of his prize money to the Red Army, see Cullerne Bown, Matthew, “Aleksandr Gerasimov,” in Cullerne Bown, Matthew and Taylor, Brandon, eds., Art of the Soviets: Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture in a One-Party State, 1917-1992 (Manchester, Eng., 1993), 133–34.Google Scholar

54. In 1949 the recendy distinguished laureate Aleksandr Laktionov took part in such an event at the Tretiakov Gallery in which he recited a potted biography and fielded a selective series of questions from the audience. Gosudarstvennaia Tret'iakovskaia galereia (GTG), f. 18, d. 295. Laktionov was introduced by Vera Gertsenberg, who placed great emphasis on the nurturing influence of the Soviet art establishment as a contributory factor to Laktionov's success.

55. Frolova-Walker has written of a similar phenomenon in her study of Soviet music production, in which she argues that "tedium, it would appear, was not an unfortunate by-product of Socialist Realism, but a quality which was deliberately cultivated." Frolova-Walker, "Stalin and the Art of Boredom," 103.

56. "Prazdnik sovetskogo iskusstvo," Iskusstvo, 1948, no. 3:3-4.

57. Plamper has argued that the "striving for ubiquity" and "totalizing ambitions," which characterized leader cult works in particular, as well as socialist realist art in general, implied the end of art criticism as a field. Plamper, Alkhimiia vlasti, 179.

58. Vladimir Pomerantsev, "On Sincerity in Literature" (1953), trans. Eric Konkol, at http://www.sovlit.com/sincerity/ (last accessed 1 September 2011). First published in Novyi mir, December 1953, 218.

59. These events on the 24 and 25 November 1949 were reported to Mikhail Suslov in a letter from Lebedev and Aleksandr Gerasimov dated 2 December 1949. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 132, d. 245,1. 37. The two young artists concerned subsequendy wrote letters of apology to Georgii Makenkov in which they expressed regret at the manner of their dissent, but in both cases they also took the opportunity to reassert the existence of a damaging generational inequality in the art establishment. See Taezhnaia's letter, dated 21 December 1949,1. 35, and Poliakov's letter, dated 15 December 1949,1. 40.

60. RGASPI, f. 17, op. 132, d. 86,11. 28-35.

61. Ibid.

62. Ibid., 1. 28.

63. Ibid., 1.31.

64. For an examination of the conflict between the incumbent arts bureaucracy and an emergent intelligentsia in the 1950s, see Reid, Susan E., “Destalinization and Taste, 1953-63,” Journal of Design History 10, no. 2 (1997): 180–82.Google Scholar

65. GTG, f. 8.II, op. 2, d. 7,1. 2.

66. GTG, f. 8.II, op. 2, d. 8,1. 18.

67. GTG, f. 8.II, op. 2, d. 9,1. 17.

68. Ibid, 1.35.

69. For a discussion of the problematic use of Soviet comment books as a historical source and the difficulty of drawing statistical conclusions from their contents, see Susan Emily Reid, "In the Name of the People: The Manège Affair Revisited," Kritika 6, no. 4 (Fall 2005): 675-84.

70. GTG, f. 8.II, op. 2, d. 16,1. 30.

71. GTG, f. 8 II, op. 3,dd. 3-4.

72. GTG, f. 8 II, op. 3, d. 3,1. 8.

73. Ibid., 1. 4.

74. Ibid., 1. 16.

75. English, Economy of Prestige, 187-96.

76. Svin'in and Oseev, eds., Stalinskie premii, 615. Stalin did, however, succeed in reviewing the recommendations for the Stalin Prizes in the sciences, and the 1952 round of awards was made shortly after his death.

77. Ibid., 617-18.

78. Ibid., 618.

79. In November 1949 the Academy of the Arts came under investigation by Goskontrol'. As a result of their inquiry, Aleksandr Gerasimov was indicted for his involvement in a number of the organization's transgressions including the awarding of extra pay to its presidium and the installation of his personal friends in prominent positions within the Academy. See RGASPI, f. 17, op. 132, d. 245,11. 142-48.

80. The most prominent published accounts of this phenomenon can be found in Pomerantsev, "On Sincerity in Literature," and Il'ia Erenburg, The Thaw (1954), both of which address the issue of cynical hack artists and their lack of creative individuality.

81. Nikita Khrushchev, "Speech to the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU," deliv-ered 24-25 February 1956. Full text available at www.marxists.org/archive/khrushchev/ 1956/02/24.htm (last accessed 1 September 2011).

82. Reid has described the process by which the institutions and mechanisms of the Stalin cult came to be criticized and dismanded by reformists within the art establishment in the 1950s. See Reid, "Destalinization and Taste," 177-87, and Reid, Susan E., “Masters of the Earth: Gender and Destalinisation in Soviet Reformist Painting of the Khrushchev Thaw,” Gender and History 11, no. 2 (July 1999): 276–312.Google Scholar