Modes of Leadership in Soviet School: Exploring the Soviet Painting of the Mid-20th Century

摘要

Soviet painting of the mid-twentieth century relating to the genre of socialist realism allows for the possibility of scientific interpretation in the context of cultural research and visual anthropology. The purpose of such research is to determine the visual (visual) means used to solve the artistic tasks of socialist realism in relation to a plot depicting Soviet life. In the middle of the twentieth century, among the plot's characteristic of socialist realism, image of the Soviet school began to appear. The purpose of this study is to identify what qualities of Soviet schoolchildren were most significant when portrayed in the paintings of socialist realism. The Soviet educational system was ideological in nature, since one of its tasks was to create a new type of person, that is, builder of communism. The painting of socialist realism accompanied-provided the solution to this problem. A student of the Soviet school was an early stage in the formation of such a person. Ideally, he is an example to others, which requires developed leadership qualities that are characteristic of fighters for a communist future. The history of the first decades of the Soviet country made it possible for children to show their qualities as the builder of a new society. Soviet hagiography suggests that a student can act both as a fighter for Soviet power (Pavlik Morozov) of and as a Defender of the fatherland (pioneer heroes). These images were rarely used in Soviet painting of the 1940s-1950s. The victory in the Great Patriotic War was the end of the revolutionary-heroic period of Soviet history, which required new characters in the painting, recognizable to Soviet children and their close ones. Now the student is no longer a fighter with the enemies of the revolution or with the invaders, he is fighting for the speedy building of communism. An exemplary student should be a leader in this process, trying to lead fewer active comrades. The analysed paintings show that young leaders seek to set an example of behaviour in critical situations characteristic of the school. Such situations arise in the struggle for the effectiveness of studies as the main duty of Soviet schoolchildren, in the struggle against violators of the norms of socialist life, even if it is an adult. Thus, image of a leader student introduces the ideological character of socialist realism into the image of the Soviet school.