abstract

My thesis deals primarily with the public monuments erected in the Stalin era. It follows the imposition of socialist realism on Eastern Europe in terms of the evolution of artistic policy and the establishment of the institutional means to control art. It involves the comparative analysis of the transformation of the structures of the art world in Hungary, East Germany and Bulgaria.
Specifically, this study considers the radicalisation of artistic policy in 1948; the creation of all-powerful ministries of culture; the reform and political subjugation of artists' unions; the cultural activities of Soviet friendship societies; the creation of a subservient art press; the use of the institution of annual national exhibitions and prizes to control artistic production; and the reform of the national art academies on Soviet lines.

In addition to considering the institutions of the Stalinist art world, my study also deals thematically with the public sculpture of the period. The monuments of the period are discussed under the following headings: historical monuments; war memorials; the cult of personality; and the socialist utopia. Within these categories, I look in detail at the commissioning process behind the erection of major monuments, their intended ideological function in public space as instruments of political education, their place within the aesthetics of socialist realism, and the way the meanings attached to them have changed over time.

The last part of my thesis considers the decline of socialist realism in the late 1950s. It shows how many of the institutional controls established after 1948 to control the art world began to unravel after Stalin's death and how stylistic and thematic liberalisation was reflected in public sculpture.