Časopis ARS 26 (1993) 2-3

International Colloquium TOTALITARIANISMS AND TRADITIONS
Ján BAKOŠ

Úvod

The intention of our Colloquium has been limited to the ambition to arrange a meeting of scholars coming from both sides of the collapsed "iron curtain" offering them an opportunity to exchange their ideas and confront their experiences with the role art played in various totalitarian regimes. We believe that the problem of the relation between art and dictatorial political power has not lost anything of its topicality in our post-totalitarian or post- industrial and post-utopian period. On the contrary, the problem of the control over art is becoming the more urgent the more disguised the nature of it is.

At the same time we are fully aware that there is a risky premise implied in our project: To compare various totalitarian regimes and their artistic styles presupposes that there is a common denominator legitimizing such a comparison. Nevertheless, there exists also another justification of such a comparative procedure: To specify the uniqueness of different phenomena by contraposing them. It is well known that three different ideas were developed as far as this topic is concerned:

A. According to the first, there exists no general or universal "totalitarian art". As a consequence, affinities between artistic expressions of various totalitarian regimes, between Fascist or Nazi-art on the one hand and s. c. Socialist Realism on the other, should be regarded as superficial and limited to their style.

B. According to the opposite idea artistic structures of various totalitarian states are so close to each other that they justify speaking of a general phenomenon called "totalitarian art".

C. A mediating position between both opinions mentioned above is represented by the belief in a universal artistic evolution irrespective of the different political structures within which art functioned.

It is noteworthy that each of these three ideas is based on a different premise as far as the principal determinant of art is concerned. The first one presupposes that art is influenced and shaped principally by the economic bases of particular totalitarianisms do not allow to speak about a "totalitarian art" in general, according to that conception. As a consequence, similarities between artistic styles of various totalitarian regimes have to be conceived of as accidental and superficial. The opposite view implies the belief in the primacy of the social function of art and the decisive role ideology or even politics play in the matters of art. According to that conception, similar artistic styles follow similar political structures despite the differences in their economics bases. As far as the third opinion is concerned, it implies the belief in an autonomous nature of artistic development and its capability to transcend all social bindings. As a consequence, not only Nazi or Fascist art and Socialist Realism represent parts of a common cultural phenomenon, but also Surrealism can be conceived of as a part of an all-embracing neo-Classicist movement in the thirties.

There are some challenging questions intentionally implied in the project of our colloquium too. The first of them can be put as follows: It is evident that all kinds of totalitarian art have an affirmative relation to the art of the past. Does that fact legitimize us to regard them as intentional historical revivals? Moreover, does the neo- Classicist nature of art in modern dictatorial regimes justify us to interpret them as vehicles of political restorations and regard them as significant tokens of post- or counter- revolutionary periods?

It is just the perspective opened by post-Modernism and post-Communism that revealed the utopian nature of avant-garde art in its full scope. As a consequence, there is a question whether the anti-avant-garde strategy of various kinds of totalitarian art legitimize our conceiving them as anti- utopias rather than as retrospective utopias.

It is quite natural that iconoclastic tendencies accompany utopian dreams. Paradoxically enough an alliance of iconoclastic device with the cult of art came into existence not only within the avant-garde movements but also within totalitarian doctrines. The specific character and particular role that tandem played within different contexts is also worth analyzing.

One of the cardinal problems concerning the history of the twentieth century art is closely connected with problems enumerated above. It can be formulated into the question whether the avant-garde utopias on the one hand and the totalitarian conservative and retrospective utopias on the other represent complementary elements of a commonly shared cultural spectrum or even a system. Or, on the contrary, whether various kinds of totalitarian art can be regarded as efforts to stop and reverse the universal course of the history of art. In other words, we should test the hypothesis that totalitarian artistic idioms weren't but ideological tools of unsuccessful attempts to catch up with economically leading countries by means of the revival of pre-industrial artistic forms and political structures.

At present the history of Modernism seems to have come to its end. As a consequence of the collapse of all revolutionary and futurist utopias we are faced with an unexpected question: How can the eclecticism shared by totalitarian art as well as post-Modernism be explained? We are here confronted with an opportunist challenge cynically claiming that the totalitarian conservative and retrospective utopias can be regarded as predecessors of post- Modernist anti-utopia. For better or for worse we cannot avoid testing a hypothesis however phantasmagoric it appears, that there could be disguised connection or, if you want a secret contract between totalitarian and post- Modern conservativisms. It is not my purpose here to look for answers to the presented questions.

Nevertheless, I have to close this list of problems we have to cope with by a self devouring question: Does not my a little long winded enumerating implied the Hegelian prejudice that there must be (and probably is) an inner unity or homogeneity between artistic styles and political and social structures? If there does not exist such an inner connection at all, many of the puzzles presented in this introduction can be solved in a quite simple way: In accordance with E. Gombrich's doctrine we could regard artistic forms as arbitrary tools able to be used (or misused) for different (and some times even opposite) purposes receiving their particular meaning from the context they are functioning within. Despite attractiveness of such solution we have first to take it as a hypothesis and to try to falsify it to keep loyalty to Sir Ernst. To do so is, in my opinion, one of the tasks of this meeting.