사회주의 리얼리즘의 재고(再考) - 독자 대중과 국가 권력의 역학을 중심으로

Abstract

This article is a study on the reciprocal dynamics between the mass readers and state power in socialistic realism. Based on that the reciprocity has been evolved dynamically, this study examines demands and tastes of the mass readers, responses and reactions of the state power, and encounter and breakup between these two parties in historical context. The social demands of the mass readers in the early days of the Soviet literature (1920-1930s) were the high profile issues to the state power and the latter responded to the former with 'following the reader,' which was officialized into socialistic realism. In addition to this, 'guiding the reader,' which meant fostering people readers among the mass readers and uniting ideal readers with Soviet man, was institutionally realized. The so-called 'the happiness of Korchagin' in socialistic realism faced a crisis by the emergence of the literary Stalinism after the middle of 1930s and especially 'Zhdanovism,' which was the peak of schematic normative literature after the middle of 1940s. The subjective romanticization of the world and human beings under the title of 'realized utopia' had brought about a detachment of the literature from real lives, which in turn prescribed a breakup between the mass readers and state power. The history of socialistic realism, if taking a look at it in terms of the dynamics between and the mass readers and state power, can be classified diachronically into the phase of reciprocal encounter(1917-1934), the phase of asymmetrical crisis(1934-1953), and the phase of gradual breakup(1954-1991). Although socialistic realism was a product of the reciprocal relations between the two, the relations had degenerated gradually into an one-way relationship and this also determined the fate of socialistic realism. Socialistic realism as a dominant paradigm for Soviet literature is an aesthetic system with historical validity for existence. It was a unprecedented aesthetic project that came into being from revolutionary zeal to create a new life. Nevertheless, the only thing that opposed this creation of life in literature was creative life itself.