“National in Form and Socialist in Content” or rather “Socialist in Form and National in Content”?: The “Amateur Art System” and the Cultivation...
“National in Form and Socialist in Content” or rather “Socialist in Form and National in Content”?: The “Amateur Art System" and the Cultivation...

Summary/Abstract: The article offers an insight into the practical implementation of Soviet folk art policy in everyday life in the Estonian SSR. Bureaucratic rules, state control, material aid, social prestige and motivation, the “folk art” competitions, media coverage, the folklore protest movement, etc., are the topics of this article. By looking closer at the ways of dealing with, interpreting and adopting the political and ideological requirements, the author explains why the Sovietised style of “folklore” could erase its Communist image in favour of a national Estonian one, and continue to be appreciated as part of the generally highly-valued “folklore” in Estonian society today.

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