Milutinović, Z; (2014) "Yes, but ...": Institutionalization and De-institutionalizaton of Socialist Realism in Serbia. Ricerche Slavistiche , 12 (58) pp. 295-321.

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Abstract

The article discusses the introduction of Socialist Realism in Serbia in the immediate post-Second World War period (1945-1948): its institutional aspects, the re-interpretation of tradition, the limited production of Socialist Realist works and the criticism which accompanied it. Following the split between Stalin and Tito in 1948, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia began re-assessing its policies, and the period from 1949 to 1952 was marked by a slow and hesitant process of re-phrasing the orthodox Socialist Realist demands. By the end of this period, the Party allowed the voices of more liberal Party members – who opposed the Kharkov line in the 1930s – as well as some pre-war Modernists to re-formulate its cultural policy, and in 1952 it made the break with Socialist Realism official. The paper further discusses the precarious balance created in 1952: the Party was willing to allow cultural freedom while at the same time it tried to control and regulate the public space formed by its reassessed cultural policy. The paper claims that as the period of Socialist Realism was brief and did not leave any significant traces, the main challenge in studying cultural production in post-war Serbia is posed by understanding these institutional arrangements which simultaneously liberated it and tried to keep it under constant surveillance.

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