Art for the People or “Socialist Realism” from 1944–1991

Abstract

This article is an attempt to link two distinct periods of Bessarabian art – the interwar period and the postwar period. These stages manifested themselves in our culture and art as diametrically opposed sources. The options for a freedom of creation, for the artistic value of the works were a desideratum of the Bessarabian plastic artists, tempted to accept any style or individual way of expression, regardless of the political or economic conjuncture. After the 1940s, the visual arts were influenced by the ideological system through the trend of “socialist realism” which was considered the only method of creation of visual artists. In this regard, specialists from other republics were invited to Soviet Bessarabia, whose purpose was to influence and educate local artists against formalist and non-bourgeois art. For five decades, in the Moldovan SSR, against the background of deportations and famine, socialist realism and state command created an illusory art of the surrounding reality, in which many of our visual artists were involved, almost without exception.

Keywords

• interwar art
• artistic value
• freedom of creation
• socialist realism
• deportation
• censorship