Sovietinė kultūros reglamentavimo sistema Lietuvoje XX a. II pusėje

Abstract

The totalitarian system of the USSR kept close control of arts and cultures in general, but there were almost no limitations or regulations for art creators in the laws of the USSR and the LSSR. The constitutions and legal codes paid almost no attention to culture and art regulation. With few exceptions almost no cultural activity was forbidden or suppressed. Even more, very little was done by Soviet state institutions in defining the state’s cultural policy strategy. What is protected and what is suppressed in the field of culture administration was described only in some basic Communist Party documents (programs, statutes, or declarations), but even party ideologues were more concerned with economical issues or foreign affairs than with the development of Soviet culture. Because of the lack of clear cultural policy ideas in USSR state laws or in Communist Party documents, all spheres of Soviet culture were supposed to obey the theory and method of socialist realism under the strict supervision of the Communist Party, the KGB, and state-controlled artist unions. The major problem was that the method of so-called socialist realism was no method at all but rather some strange mix of ideas about heroism, ideology, and peoples’ or national culture. Any work of art from any historical period could be declared fit or unfit for the label of socialist realism. In reality, the strategy of USSR cultural policy depended only on the goodwill and tastes of the highest level nomenclatura leaders. They were concerned only with the use of art for the selfserving purpose of staying in power not only by means of totalitarian control and repression but through manipulating Soviet culture.