Vilius Ivanauskas (PDF)
https://doi.org/10.53631/DIS/2017.8.9
The cultural elite actively participated in the policy of Sovietisation during the Soviet era. Creative unions, such as the Writers’ Union, were not just professional organisations. They had to contribute to the indoctrination of society. In light of official ideological requirements, they decided who was a ‘real’ writer and participated in defining the limits of socialist realism in literature. Soviet writers were public figures and popular in society. Their role and status in the system were particularly important because they actively promoted the values of Soviet ideology and the achievements of the Soviet government. The article examines how ethno-particularism manifested itself in practice in literary life and what its main stages, specifics and key figures were. It examines how Soviet Lithuania, one of the Soviet republics, ensured the dissemination of the national ideology and how this spread coincided with the trajectories of creativity and activity of the local cultural elite. The study shows how writers belonging to the cultural establishment in the post-Stalin period secured a multidimensional relationship with the system, how they took part in disseminating the national ideology, and how they were influenced by the instruments of political control and the national processes. An analysis of the creative activity of different generations of writers reveals growing ethnic (local) interests and a growing distance between official goals and the everyday life of the cultural strata of society.
Keywords: Sovietisation, creative unions, ethno-particularism, national ideology