By ALEXANDER DOLITSKY
My good friend in Kiev (former Soviet Union), Slava Pilman, was a promising and struggling artist of visual art. In the early 1970s, he admired Western modern art of the mid-19th and early 20th centuries, including Impressionism (Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh), Cubism (Pablo Picasso), Surrealism (Salvador Dali), Fauvism (Henri Matisse), Expressionism (Edvard Munch) and several other styles of modern art; but he had no passion and tolerance for the Socialist Realism style.
From about the 1930s to the late 1980s, Socialist Realism was the official cultural doctrine of the Soviet Union. This style mandated an idealized representation of life and cultural traditions under socialism in literature and the visual arts. The doctrine was first proclaimed by the First Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934, which approved the standardized method for Soviet cultural production in all media.
Soon after the October Socialist Revolution in Russia in 1917, Vladimir Lenin laid down his thoughts on what purpose visual art must serve working masses. He believed that it was important that visual art was no longer a domain of the upper classes and the bourgeoisie. He stated that, “… art belongs to the people. It must leave its deepest roots in the very thick of the working masses.”
Writers and artists were required to follow the party line on style, especially under Joseph Stalin’s political rule (1922-1953). Moscow University and Moscow Metro are clear symbols of Stalinist’s architecture style. Then, socialist realism was seen as the means of educating people, so any deviance was often punishable by the NKVD/KGB (Soviet Secret Police) with varying harsh outcomes.
During the Nikita Khrushchev era (1957-1964), literature and visual art were still stagnant. Khrushchev declared: “As long as I am President of the Council of Ministers, we are going to support genuine art. We aren’t going to give a kopeck [cent] for pictures painted by jackasses. History can be our judge. For the time being history has put us at the head of this state, and we have to answer for everything that goes on in it.”
Leonid Brezhnev’s stagnant political era (1964-1982) in the Soviet Union continued to be sanctioned by only one artistic style—Socialist Realism. Paintings and sculptures emphasized idealized figures heroically enduring hardships and overcoming unjust opposition on a relentless crusade for progress and prosperity toward “delusional” communism.
So, Slava Pilman, as well as many other intellectuals in the Soviet Union, was trapped in the illusive socialist reality. I kept advising Slava to compromise and adjust his artistic style to the existing socialist environment, “Slava, paint cows, peasants and workers, otherwise you will starve to death.” Slava’s usual response was, “I am a free artist, and I will paint what I see and think, not what they want me to see and think.” “Slava, you are free from a job,” I reminded him, “… and you are going to die in the Gulag (Soviet labor camp) as a free man.”
I left the Soviet Union on March 16, 1977 under the status of a political refugee; and I lost track of my friend Slava Pilman. One day, however, Slava’s predicament re-appeared in my memories when in 1986 the Soviet delegation visited Juneau. Then, I was teaching archaeology, history and Russian Studies at the University of Alaska Southeast; I was frequently called to translate/assist for various delegations from the Soviet Union, visiting Alaska.
That delegation consisted of six high-ranking Soviet officials; it was sponsored by the Rotary International. My close friend, the late Bill Ruddy and his wife Kathy Kolhorst hosted and guided this group. Vladimir Nadein, a letters editor of the Izvestiya (News) newspaper was one of the guests in this group. Then, Izvestiya was the second largest newspaper after Pravda (Truth) in the Soviet Union, with a circulation of several million copies, which context was tightly controlled by the Communist Party “watch dogs and gate keepers.”
One day, Nadein asked me, “Sasha (Alexander), is there any way we can visit the State Archives? I am curious if we can locate any existing first-hand documents related to the Alaska-Siberia Lend-Lease Program during WWII.” Per his request, I took him to the State Library and in about 10 minutes the librarian brought us several original documents of the ALSIB program. “Remarkable,” Nadein proclaimed. “It would take months just to get permission to request the information in our State archives.” He examined the documents with a great interest and took some notes.
In fact, the editors of the major newspapers in the former Soviet Union, for the most part, were political appointees, with the connection to the State Secret Police. Their job was to suppress freedom of speech and advocate socialist propaganda.
I have never expected that today’s progressive American media, including our own Juneau Empire, would resemble far-left Soviet style practices—poorly edited publications, unchecked primary sources, and, periodically, publication of poorly written, misleading, and fabricated articles. No surprise that newspapers in Alaska (e.g., Juneau Empire since arrival of a current editor in June/July of 2023) are losing their readership.
As one of the commentators of my article “Plagiarism vs. Fabrication” published in Must Read Alaska on April 6 observed: “Every day, I wonder and despair about the condition of the media. I’ve always said, ‘why isn’t lying against the law?’ It is so common, not only in the media, but in our government, which has failed us miserably.” Sad!
Alexander B. Dolitsky was born and raised in Kiev in the former Soviet Union. He received an M.A. in history from Kiev Pedagogical Institute, Ukraine, in 1976; an M.A. in anthropology and archaeology from Brown University in 1983; and was enroled in the Ph.D. program in Anthropology at Bryn Mawr College from 1983 to 1985, where he was also a lecturer in the Russian Center. In the U.S.S.R., he was a social studies teacher for three years, and an archaeologist for five years for the Ukranian Academy of Sciences. In 1978, he settled in the United States. Dolitsky visited Alaska for the first time in 1981, while conducting field research for graduate school at Brown. He lived first in Sitka in 1985 and then settled in Juneau in 1986. From 1985 to 1987, he was a U.S. Forest Service archaeologist and social scientist. He was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Alaska Southeast from 1985 to 1999; Social Studies Instructor at the Alyeska Central School, Alaska Department of Education from 1988 to 2006; and has been the Director of the Alaska-Siberia Research Center (see www.aksrc.homestead.com) from 1990 to present. He has conducted about 30 field studies in various areas of the former Soviet Union (including Siberia), Central Asia, South America, Eastern Europe and the United States (including Alaska). Dolitsky has been a lecturer on the World Discoverer, Spirit of Oceanus, andClipper Odyssey vessels in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. He was the Project Manager for the WWII Alaska-Siberia Lend Lease Memorial, which was erected in Fairbanks in 2006. He has published extensively in the fields of anthropology, history, archaeology, and ethnography. His more recent publications include Fairy Tales and Myths of the Bering Strait Chukchi, Ancient Tales of Kamchatka; Tales and Legends of the Yupik Eskimos of Siberia; Old Russia in Modern America: Russian Old Believers in Alaska; Allies in Wartime: The Alaska-Siberia Airway During WWII; Spirit of the Siberian Tiger: Folktales of the Russian Far East; Living Wisdom of the Far North: Tales and Legends from Chukotka and Alaska; Pipeline to Russia; The Alaska-Siberia Air Route in WWII; and Old Russia in Modern America: Living Traditions of the Russian Old Believers; Ancient Tales of Chukotka, and Ancient Tales of Kamchatka.