Culture

Summary

The Art of Stalinist Period and Art Criticism in Lithuania: The Doctrinal Rhetoric and Safeguarding of Artistic Value

The article analyses the socreaalistic indoctrination of the lithuanian art and art criticism in the postwar period. It attempts to reveal the strategies of manipulation which were used by the players of cultural field: the socrealistic doctrinaires implementing the state cultural policy from one side, and the artists and art critics, which attempted to safeguard their creative activity from the ideological excesses, from the other. The latter soon recognized the manipulative strategies of the doctrinaires and, though formally adapting to the doctrine, through the use of compromise strived to retain the criteria of aesthetic value, maintain the level of the art, and its variety of genres.