Between Revolution And Art

As a Marxist during the early stage of Soviet Union, Lunacharsky applied theMarxism Principles of Literary Criticism in literary criticism. He had his own uniqueunderstanding of many key subjects of the Marxist Literature Theories. Lunacharskyhad many literary works, which cover a wide range of areas, including aesthetics,literary theories, literary criticism, and cultural policies and so on. This study focuseson the field of literary criticism of Lunacharsky, combined with his literary thoughts,investigates his contribution in the process of development of Marxist criticism.This paper begins with in-depth discussion on several theoretical subjects relatedto literary criticism from the literary criticism perspective, as to have a clearerunderstanding of the critical thinking of Lunacharsky, and carefully sorts outLunacharsky’s critical practices of Essays in Russian and Western European Literatureon this basis; examining the situation of the implementation and expansion of hiscritical concepts through specific case studies, as to further understand and recognizehis critical thought. At the same time, taking into account the specific historical erawhen Lunacharsky engaged in criticism activities, this paper will also restoreLunacharsky’s critical text to that specific historical era, combined with the specificsocial and historical context, analyzes the contradictions and theoretical value in it.This paper consists of6parts, namely introduction,4chapters in the main bodyand conclusion:The introduction mainly introduces the literary career of Lunacharsky, studies thesituation of domestic translated introduction and research of Lunacharsky, anddescribes the research ideas and the structure of the paper.The first chapter in-depth investigates several key subjects in the critical thoughtof Lunacharsky, including the relationship between literature and politics, realismbeing the understanding of developing concepts, typical methods of literary criticismand research on writers under the Theory of Active Reflection based on the overallcritical thought of Lunacharsky. The relationship between literature and politics hasalways been a topic concerned by literary scholars. The Marxist literary criticismregards the relationship between art and ideology as a major theoretical subject. Lunacharsky dialectically dealt with the relationship between the two. On the onehand, he confirmed that the tendency and class nature of literature which requires theliterature to serve the ideology. On the other hand, he also emphasized the speciallaws of art, advocated creative freedom, and opposed leading the literature based on"pure political" standards. In Lunacharsky’s point of view, the realism, as a genre,would change in different historical periods. The Socialist Realism should not onlyuse realistic approaches, but also should pay attention to the application of romanticapproaches. On the critical aspect, Lunacharsky emphasized the historical, social,aesthetic critical approaches, but in the context of ideology, the political criticism isinevitable. Literature is a reflection of reality, and the writer’s subjectivity is alsoreflected in his/her works. Lunacharsky proposed the subjects of “great writers oftenemerge at turning points in history” and “all writers are politicians” based on theTheory of Active Reflection, reflecting his further development of the basic principlesof Marxism.The second chapter investigates the research on Russian Literature done byLunacharsky, focusing on Lunacharsky’s comments on writers, like Pushkin, Tolstoy,Dostoevsky, Gorky and Mayakovsky who represented different periods and differentcreative characteristics, and investigates specific application of Lunacharsky’s criticalthought through case study. From Lunacharsky’s point of view, as people in an era,writers are inevitably influenced by era and social factors, such as Mayakovsky, hiscreative personality fit with the spirit of the times, which led him toward revolution.And in an era of crisis, the writer’s personal feelings and tendencies cannot resonatewith the times, but revolting the times and society in the creative personality, greatwriters are able to transcend the limitations of the times to create great works. Pushkin,Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky are representatives on this aspect.The third chapter investigates the research on the western European literaturedone by Lunacharsky, mainly concerning the criticism on English, French, Germanyliterature of Lunacharsky. This section further investigates the application anddevelopment of Lunacharsky’s critical ideas and Marxist critical theories through casestudy of writers of different countries, different times and different creativepersonalities, including Shakespeare, Dickens, and Wales of UK, Merimee, Stendhal,and Romain Rolland of France as well as Goethe and Holderlin of Germany.The fourth chapter mainly involves the evaluation of Lunacharsky’s criticism. Asa critic of Russian Marxism, Lunacharsky’s critical thought was influenced by both classic criticism of Marx and Engels and Russian Marxist critics, such as Plekhanov,Lenin and others. Meanwhile, Lunacharsky was also influenced by the Russianrevolutionary democrat critics. Inheritance and development of critical traditionhelped Lunacharsky to form critical ideas personal characteristics. At the beginning ofthe20th-century, there were many literary and artistic ideas in Soviet Union, andvarious concepts prevailed. Lunacharsky confirmed classic writers and works andopposed cultural nihilism through criticism. Meanwhile, he also opposed “art for art’ssake” from aspect of tendency to literature. The evaluation of Lunacharsky’s criticismmust be combined with a specific era, social and political context, as to reallyunderstand the theoretical value and inherent contradictions in Lunacharsky’scriticism.The conclusion section discusses the selection of Lunacharsky’s literary criticismin revolution and art, ideology and art. There are many contradictions inLunacharsky’s literary criticism, which is mainly due to the complexity of his identity.On the one hand, from his stand of a literary leader under Soviet regime, he thoughthow to achieve the victory of revolution and consolidate the Soviet regime throughliterary criticism; on the other hand, once he resumed his literary and the critic identity,he had to admit the laws of the art itself, and advocated objective critical approaches.The purpose of this paper is to retrospect a particular era in the development ofMarxist literary criticism, sort out and explore the main ideas and approaches ofSoviet Marxist criticism which is one of the3main modes of Marxist criticismthrough investigation of Lunacharsky, an important representative of Soviet Marxistcriticism, and provide reference for the research on nowadays Marxist criticism.