UNDER THE YOKE OF STALINIST IDEOLOGY (1944-1953) (Staliniskas ideologijas juga (1944-1953))

• Authors: Sturme Brigita
• Languages of publication: LV

Abstracts

EN

World War II had not yet ended when in 1944 Soviet institutions in occupied Riga ordered schools to begin teaching again, although the necessary conditions were absent. The former Riga State School of Applied Art also started working, renamed as the Riga Secondary School of Applied Art, with a five-year training course. The new director, graphic artist Karlis Buss, had spent some time in Riga Central Prison for his political activities during the 1930s. He tried to balance the secondary school curriculum, including the USSR Constitution and Russian language with training in crafts, composition and other specialized art subjects. As reconstruction work of the Soviet state was resumed, the Riga Secondary School of Applied Art had to prepare artists for practical work in branches of light industry as well as teachers for practical training and drawing classes. In autumn 1945 the school had six departments of applied art - needlework, textile art, ceramics, metal art, woodworking, leatherworking and bookbinding. A year later the department of glass working was added. The staff consisted of pedagogues and artists educated during the first Republic of Latvia who were skilled professionals, but found it hard to accept the dictates of the new government. Socialist Realism ruled and the school curricula also had to be adapted o its dogmas. The most difficult requirement was that applied art compositions should be contemporary and should comply with the method of Socialist Realism - 'national in form and socialist in content'. How to do this without losing the artistic qualities of the work? There was no clear answer to this but to question the method's requirements meant losing one's job. The most popular contemporary elements of compositions were Soviet symbols such as the hammer and sickle, five-pointed star, flags, state emblems and leaders' portraits, framed by decorations of ethnographic elements and coloring. Works from the period of Stalin's personality cult featured pompous splendor and affectation.

Keywords

EN

APPLIED ARTS; ART EDUCATION; RIGA SECONDARY SCHOOL OF APPLIED ART; SOCIALIST REALISM

Discipline

• ARTS_&_ARCHITECTURE: ARTS & ARCHITECTURE

• Publisher: Institute of Art History of the Latvian Academy of Art and Art History Research Support Foundation
• Journal: Makslas Vesture un Teorija
• Year: 2004
• Volume: 2
• Pages: 49-59
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Sturme Brigita

• Brigita Sturme, no data

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

04LVAAAA089117