X-Nico

5 unusual facts about Socialist Realism


Battle of Głogów

On 1 September 1979 a large Socialist Realistic memorial to the Głogów children was inaugurated to commemorate not only the 870th anniversary but also the 40th memorial day of the German Invasion of Poland.

Leopold Lewin

Arrested by NKVD, he became a Polish communist, joining the Union of Polish Patriots there, and was an author of many socrealistic poems (like 'Song of United Parties' - 'Pieśń Partii Zjednoczonych').

Russian postmodernism

Beginning as an underground political-artistic move against the use of Socialist realism as a method of social control and becoming a full-fledged movement with the Moscow Conceptualists, Russian conceptualism used the symbolism of Socialist realism against the Soviet government.

Socialist realism

The theme of revolutionary history was developed in films such as The Youth of Maxim, by Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg, Shchors by Dovzhenko, and We are from Kronstadt by E. Dzigan.

Yuri Pimenov, Boris Ioganson and Geli Korzev have also been described as "unappreciated masters of twentieth-century realism".


Cezar Lăzărescu

Faced with an apparently unsolvable problem (building over one thousand beds on an insufficient budget and within an unreasonably short time), with little "political oversight" (since the actual political battles are fought far away in Bucharest), Lăzărescu creates, together with his team, a vast building complex in a style reminiscent of American architecture, very far from the Socialist realism required by law.

Jinan Liberation Pavilion

However, the sides of the pedestal are decorated with bas-relief stone carvings that depict scenes from the civil-war battle for Jinan in the style of Socialist realism.

Kuleshov Effect

Soviet montage cinema was suppressed under Joseph Stalin during the 1930s as a dangerous example of Formalism in the arts, and as being incompatible with the official Soviet artistic doctrine of Socialist Realism.

Monumento a la Revolución

The open building was designed by Carlos Obregón Santacilia in an eclectic Art Deco and Mexican socialist realism style, over the existing cupola structure of the cancelled Palacio Legislativo Federal (Federal Legislative Palace) by Émile Bénard.


see also

Alanna Heiss

Over the next three decades, P.S.1 became one of the most respected exhibition and performance spaces in New York, with such exhibitions as New York, New Wave (1981); Stalin's Choice: Soviet Socialist Realism, 1932-1956 (1993); Greater New York (2000 and 2005), and Arctic Hysteria (2008); Robert Grosvenor (1976); Keith Sonnier (1983); Alex Katz: Under the Stars, American Landscapes 1951-1995 (1998); John Wesley: Paintings 1961-2000 (2000), and Gino De Dominicis (2008).

Aleksandr Laktionov

Aleksandr Ivanovich Laktionov (1910–1972), Socialist realism painter in the post-war Soviet Union

Portrait of Catherine Balebina

In 2007 the «Portrait of Catherine Balebina» has been described and reproduced in the book «Unknown Socialist Realism. The Leningrad School» among 350 selected works by artists of the Leningrad School.

Portrait of Yevgeny Mravinsky

In 2007 the «Portrait of Yevgeny Mravinsky» has been described and reproduced in the book «Unknown Socialist Realism. The Leningrad School» among 350 selected works by artists of the Leningrad School.