The term ‘formalism’ in the context of Socialist Realism in Bulgarian arts Cover Image
  • Price 4.50 €

Понятието формализъм в контекста на социалистическия реализъм в българското изкуство
The term ‘formalism’ in the context of Socialist Realism in Bulgarian arts

Author(s): Svetlana Kujumdzieva
Subject(s): Fine Arts / Performing Arts
Published by: Институт за изследване на изкуствата, Българска академия на науките

Summary/Abstract: The paper deals with the use of the term formalism in the rhetoric of the early ‘regulatory phase’ of Socialist Realism in Bulgarian arts and gives a brief review of its transformations in the period following Stalin’s death. The definition of the term is formulated mainly through the paradoxes, oppositions and inconsistencies, which would emerge in relation to the term, when it has been analysed in terms of West-European modernism and then, in terms of Socialist Realism. Some of the eminent theoreticians of Western formalism as well as of Socialist aesthetics in Bulgaria are referred to. The core message of the paper searches to show how intentionally rendered void of particular terminological meaning in the socialist context, the label ‘formalism’ has been used mostly as a subjective critical agent of the authorities, and more often than not, as an antipode to the “right” method, proving at times devastating to artists’ careers. The most dramatic and most cited is the ‘Zhendov case’. The so-called ‘Zhendovism” was established as an alternative name that referred to formalism in Bulgarian arts in the 1940’s and the 1950’s; still, the demagogic manner of its usages never evolved in a particular definition, but just proved its total conventionality and vagueness. Thus, the term ‘formalism’ has been going with its vague and discrepant meaning all along the development of socialist arts in Bulgaria as the ever-present routine “foe” to the official style well until its latest phases, when the latter begun to be enriched with “formalistic” artistic devices from the repertory of the early Bulgarian modernism.

  • Issue Year: 2011
  • Issue No: 7
  • Page Range: 184-190
  • Page Count: 7
  • Language: Bulgarian