Date of Award
2020
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Social Sciences
Second Department
Humanities
First Advisor
Hicks, Barbara
Area of Concentration
History
Abstract
The Stalin period (1928-1953) saw more control over the artistic process than ever before. The state created an official canon of mythical characters that were part of a "great family," its father, Stalin. This thesis argues that the function of the filial images projected on Soviet society during the 1930s was to personalize loyalty to the “great family” and to Stalin. The regime’s heroes were mythologized beyond their human stature, its enemies subjected to damnatio memoriae. This project examines the filial identity of Stalin’s regime, as manifested in its art. This “family” organizes identity within socialist realism and in Soviet society. The state depicted a vanguard of “sons” pushing the limits of human potential and Soviet technology. Women participated in the mythos, but their life was always tied to the natalist efforts to create a massive workforce, as well as their “liberation” by participating in that workforce. These working, struggling and becoming figures were human models that citizens were forced to study and emulate. Soviet art of the 1930s sought to deemphasize domestic life for men, while making women domestic heroes, in order to make them both tireless servants of Soviet authority. Public identity was tied to work, and proper identity was the means of survival.
Recommended Citation
Newmyer, Miles, "The State of Becoming: Constructing Masculine Heroes in Stalin’s Soviet Union" (2020). Theses & ETDs. 5974.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/5974