Concerning Art and Politics in Yugoslavia during the 1930s

Author(s): Irina Subotić

Source: Art Journal, Vol. 52, No. 1, Political Journals and Art, 1910-40 (Spring, 1993), pp.
69-71
Published by: CAA
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/777304
Accessed: 16-05-2019 19:35 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

CAA is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Art Journal

This content downloaded from 193.198.212.4 on Thu, 16 May 2019 19:35:02 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 Concerning Art and Politics in
Yugoslavia during the 1930s

Irina Subotil

fascinating dialogue on the issue of culture and

man offering old and exhausted Europe fresh creativity and
vitality coming from the Balkan mountains, the idea of the
political ideology appeared in various Communist
69
"free man" promoted by the Communists was an economic
and pro-Communist journals in Yugoslavia during
concept.
the thirties. Despite the official outlawing of the Communist
Party in 1929 by King Alexander Karadjordjevid, who be- Despite the fact that many political journals of the
thirties supported the Communist position toward art, there
lieved it to be a subversive element and a threat to his regime,
the Party continued to function illegally largely through
were differing views expressed. Danas [Today] (Belgrade,
1934) and Pecat [Seal] (Zagreb, 1939-40) were two Leftist,
periodicals published in Zagreb and Belgrade. Often short-
prosocialist publications. Danas supported the ideas of
lived owing to inadequate finances and government harass-
Nikolai Bucharin and was, therefore, accused of revisionism
ment, these periodicals followed in principle the ideological
position of the Comintern and the Second International Con-
by the Party. It published the writings of Miroslav Krleza, one
ference of Proletarian and Revolutionary Writers and Artists
of the most profound and intelligent Yugoslav writers, who
found social realism not a restrictive dogma but a creative
held in Kharkov in 1930. Adhering to the "Resolution on Art"
adopted at Kharkov, these publications opposed the bour-
method to promote artistic freedom, a position that was later
geois belief in art for art's sake and asserted that art should
vehemently attacked by the Party. Similarly, Pecat encour-
further the political and ideological goals of the workers'
aged the independence of art from the control of any political
revolution. Until 1933, Communist and affiliated journals
party, adopting a position close to that of Trotsky. While both
allowed theoretical discussion of this position and tolerated
Danas and Pecat presented liberal policies toward art, the
varying degrees of support for it. However, with the risemajority
of of political journals during the thirties adhered
fascism in Germany and Spain and with the adoption of closely
the to the Communist line. Discussions of art focused
program of socialist realism at the First Congress of the
principally on the Zemlja (Earth) and related Hlebine artists
in Zagreb and on the Surrealists and the Zivot (Life) artists in
Union of Soviet Writers held in Moscow in 1934, the Yugoslav
Communist Party and periodicals supporting it adopted Belgrade.2
a
more rigid adherence to the principle that art should be used The Zemlja group,3 the first socially engaged group of
as a political weapon. artists in Yugoslavia, was founded in Zagreb in 1929 by Ivan
In the early thirties, political journals either rejected
Tabakovid and Oton Postruinik and in Paris by Krsto
or modified some important tenets of earlier nonpartisan, but
Hegedulid and Leo Junek. Politically, its program supported
dialectical materialism and socialism. It advocated collec-
often socially committed, journals such as Plamen [Flame]
(Zagreb, 1919) and Zenit [Zenith] (Zagreb and Belgrade, tive ideals of social justice, and opposed bourgeois society.
1921-26). These publications had advocated either expres-
Although asserting the union of art and society, Zemlja
sionist art or abstract geometric Constructivist art withopposed
its the official Party doctrine of socialist realism. It
goal of transforming man and life.1 Although putting aside
found the roots of local expression in the work of peasant
painters, such as the Hlebine group, also founded by
both the expressionist and Constructivist positions, some
journals continued to discuss the theoretical and ideological
Hegeduiid, which was located in Hlebine, a village not far
concept of the "free man," which had been advocated by from Zagreb. The direct expression and naive style of
Hlebine artists were in keeping with the social content
Ljubomir Mici6, editor of Zenit, during the twenties. How-
ever, unlike Micid's concept of "Barbarogenius," the free
advocated by Zemlja artists with whom they exhibited. The

ART JOURNAL

This content downloaded from 193.198.212.4 on Thu, 16 May 2019 19:35:02 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
70
ideas and formal style of Zemlja artists were close to those of diverse aesthetic positions. Central to Krleza's views was his
Neue Sachlichkeit artists Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, and belief in the capacity of the free intellectual, the "free man,"
George Grosz. The socialist journals Danas and Pecat, as to produce art independent of political ideology. He pointed
well as Knjizevnik [Writer] (Zagreb, 1928-39), Nova litera- out that the Stalinist support of "barbarian thinking" and
tura [New literature] (Belgrade, 1934), Savremana stvarnost "barbarian culture" was in reality false, because Stalinist
[Contemporary reality] (Zagreb, 1933), Kultura [Culture] ideology opposed freedom of thought and artistic creativity.
(Zagreb, 1933), and Almanah savremenih problema [Alma- Strong criticism of Krleza's views appeared in Knjiievne
nac of contemporary problems], reproduced the work and sveske [Literary journal] (Belgrade and Zagreb, 1940), an
presented the ideas of Zemlja artists.4 organ of the Yugoslav Communist Party and a staunch advo-
In contrast to the support of Zemlja that appeared in cate of the position that art should be used solely for the
Leftist journals, the group was criticized in publications purpose of promoting the dictatorship of the proletariat.
affiliated both with the government and with the Communist Milovan Djilas, arguing the Stalinist position, accused
Party. For example, Hrvatska revija [Croat review] (Zagreb, Krle-a of revisionism, of betrayal of the materialistic ap-
1918-41), a journal that was closely tied to the government, proach, and of supporting Bucharin's views.7 Another brutal
reported on Zemlja and published Jerolim Mise's lucid criti- reponse came from Josip Broz Tito, head of the Communist
cism of the group for its use of petit-bourgeois methods and for Party in Yugoslavia, who attacked Marko Risti6, Vasa Bog-
not being innovative.5 In 1933, Hegeduiid's work occasioned danov, and Zvonimir Richtmann, writers and theoreticians
a heated debate in Kultura, a Communist periodical. At who supported Krleza's position.8
issue were the anti-Stalinist views of Miroslav Krleta that While Zemlja and Hlebine artists were the subject of
had appeared in the preface to Podravski motivi [Motifsdebate
of in Zagreb, the Surrealists and Zivot artists in Bel-
Podravina], a portfolio of Hegedusic's drawings. In this grade
im- elicited comparable discussion. Equally socially com-
portant essay, Krleta criticized the Stalinist position as
mitted but advocating distinctly different pictorial imagery
dogmatic, narrow-minded, and opposed to creativity. and style, each group occasioned considerable reactions in
Kultura immediately counterattacked, accusing Krleta ofthe
notpolitical press.
accepting the hopes for the victory of "light over darkness," The Surrealists found themselves in a curious position
inferring that he had moved to the political Right, towardsvis-a*-vis
the the Communists. Like their French counterparts,
they were intellectually committed to Marxism and to revolu-
conservative bourgeois position. Jovan Popovid argued that
the form and subject matter of art were inseparable.6 tionary political action, yet they were harshly criticized, and
essentially ostracized, by Yugoslav Communists. This con-
The attack on Krleta culminated after the publication
of his "Dijalektiaki antibarbarus" [Dialectical antibarbarus]
tradictory state of affairs resulted from the fact that Surreal-
in the December 1939 issue of Pecat. In this essay, Krleza
ists did not require art to be explicitly social and political in
content and imagery but asserted the importance of the
questioned the moral basis of the proletarian revolution,
unconscious in both subject matter and technique. They
objected to the union of art and politics, and demonstrated
based some of their work on Freudian psychoanalysis, creat-
that the objectives of pro-Communist publications were solely
political and not aesthetic. He called for an openness tocompositions that were typically chance-induced and
ing

SPRING 1993

This content downloaded from 193.198.212.4 on Thu, 16 May 2019 19:35:02 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

often overtly sexual. To staunch Communists who were un-
compromising in their adherence to socialist realism and to
the propagandist role of art in furthering the revolution, such
work was considered escapist, incomprehensible to the prole-
tariat, and not supportive of the workers' cause. The differ-
ences between Surrealists and Communists were highlighted
in 1932 by the Louis Aragon affair. In opposition to Yugoslav
Communists, who backed the pro-Stalinist Louis Aragon,
the Surrealists in Belgrade sided with Andrd Breton, a sup-
porter of Leon Trotsky. Reflecting the Communists' dislike
of Surrealists, Stoier [Axis] (Belgrade, 1930-35), a pro-
Communist review, ridiculed and berated them.9 In defense
of Surrealism, Ristid, Koda Popovid, and Milan Dedinac
argued that it was dialectical and that the Communist posi-
tion was too narrow-minded and dogmatic.10
Unlike the Zemlja, Hlebine, and Surrealist artists, all
of whom were criticized in the Communist and pro-
Communist press as "enemies of the working class,"" the
work of ,ivot artists, an underground, outlawed group of
socially committed artists founded in Belgrade in 1934, was
strongly supported by Communist publications. NIN/I
Nedeljne informative novine [Weekly informational journal]
(Belgrade, 1935 to the present), in particular, illustrated
works by Dojordje Andrejevi6 Kun, Marijan Detoni, Mirko
Kuja6i6, Djurdje Teodorovid, Djuro Tiljak, and other Zivot
artists. Following the dictates of socialist realism, NIN illus-
trations had explicit social content that frequently ap-
proached agitprop in criticizing established values and in
encouraging a workers' revolution. Typical of political pub-
lications, the layout and typography of NIN were austere and
uninventive.
As in other countries during the thirties, Leftist and
IRINA SUBOTI(C, senior curator at the National Museum in
Party-affiliated journals were an important forum for discus-
Belgrade and professor of modern art history at the University
sions concerning the appropriate union of art and political
of Belgrade, specializes in avant-garde art in the former
message. Each of the most prominent groups of socially Yugoslavia.
This content downloaded from 193.198.212.4 on Thu, 16 May 2019 19:35:02 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
71
committed artists in Yugoslavia at the time-Zemlja, Sur-
realist, ivot artists-occasioned significant debate in polit-
ical journals. While socialist journals tolerated a greater
range of formal style and social content, Communist and
Communist-affiliated publications dogmatically advocated
strict adherence to the Party doctrine of socialist realism. -
Notes
This essay was written prior to the recent dissolution of Yugoslavia and does not
reflect any subsequent changes in nomenclature. The translation is by Laureen
Weingarten.
1. For a statement supporting Constructivism as revolutionary art, see M. Rasinov,
"Zenitizam kroz prizmu marksizma" [Zenithism through the prism of Marxism], Zenit
[Zenith] 43 (December 1926): n.p.
2. For the most comprehensive study of the relationship between art and revolution,
see Stanko Lasid, Sukob na knjdevnoj ljevici 1928-1952 [Conflict on the literary Left,
1928-1952] (Zagreb: Liber, 1970).
3. See Djuro Tiljak, "Izloba ZemIlje" [Exhibition of Zemlja], Knjdevnik [Writer] 1
(1933): 35-38.
4. For a history of Zemlja, see Josip Depolo, "Zemlja, 1929-1935" [Earth, 1929-
1935] in Nadrealizam-Postnadrealizam-Socijalna umnietnost-UniUmetnost Nor-a-
Socijalistilki realizam [Surrealism-Post-Surrealism-social art-art of the War of
Liberation-socialist realism] (Belgrade: Muzej savremene umetnosti [Museum of
Modern Art], 1969), 36-50.
5. See Jerolim Mige, "Izloiba Zemlje" [Exhibition of Zemlja], Hrvatska revija [Croat
review] (1933): 116-19.
6. Jovan Popovid, "O socijainoj literaturi" [On social literature], Kultura [Culture] 4
(April 1933): 266-67.
7. M[ilo] Nikolid (pseudonym of Milovan Djilas), "Od nerazumijevanja do re-
vizionizma" [From misunderstanding to revisionism], Kmjiievne sveske [Literary jour-
nal] 1 (April 1940): 167-194.
8. T. [Josip Broz Tito], "Trockizam i njegovi pomaga'i" [Trotskyism and its assis-
tants], Proleter [Proletarian] 1 (May 1939): 5.
9. I. Merin (pseudonym of Pavle Bihalji), "Dva nadrealisti6ka izdanja" [Two Surreal-
ist editions], Stoter [Axis] 7-8 (1931): 228-29.
10. Marko Ristid, Milan Dedinac, and Koa Popovid, "Nerazumevanje dejalektike"
[Misunderstanding of dialectics], Nadrealizam danas i ovde [Surrealism today and
here] 3 (1932): 1.
11. Josip Sestak (pseudonym of Edvard Kardelj), "Nekoliko opitih primjedaba
povodom peatovskih revizionisti'kih pokugaja" [Several general remarks on Pedat's
revisionary attempt], Knj]ievne sveske 1 (August 1940): 237-311.
ART JOURNAL