SAIS Review

The Second World War was one of the most important events in the history of the Soviet Union, second only to the 1917 Bolshevik revolution. [End Page 251] In the fifty years since the end of the “Great Patriotic War” (as WW II is known in the former Soviet Union), many studies have been published, both in Russia and abroad, dealing with the topic. Historians have looked at the political alliances and military campaigns, analyzed the role of Stalin and of the Communist Party, and tried to portray the sufferings of a nation which lost over 25 million of its citizens during the struggle. Very little has been written, however, about the role of culture and the arts during this period. And yet, it is often in such moments of extreme pain and misery that culture becomes more relevant, helping audiences to feel an attachment to life in an otherwise dehumanizing situation.

Culture and Entertainment in Wartime Russia attempts to fill a gap in the literature by showing the significance that the arts had in the Soviet war effort. During the war years, there was frantic cultural activity of an intensity unique to the Soviet Union. This activity proved essential in rallying the citizens behind its country and in boosting the morale of the civilian population and of the soldiers at the front. Richard Stites had already offered an introduction to the topic in his previous book Russian Popular Culture, which contained a chapter on the war years. In this new book, Stites has gathered the most recent studies on both elite and popular culture during the Second World War and has framed them in the context of the war history of the Soviet Union. The essays in the collection cover forms of art and culture from classical music and graphic art to the press, radio, and variety shows. But the essays provide more than a mere description of patriotic films screened throughout Russia, of plays performed at the front, or of popular songs broadcast over the radio. These essays show how culture and entertainment were instrumental in forging a sense of unity among the population during the war, and how they managed to give hope and encouragement to a nation which was enduring extreme hardship.

In the Soviet Union, writers, musicians and other artists were forced to join unions. When the war began, these artists’ unions were evacuated from Moscow and Leningrad to safer areas from which they could launch their campaign of resistance. The same centralization which had tightened party control over the arts during the 1930’s was responsible for the success of the wartime mobilization of cultural associations. The articles point out, however, that centralization prevailed only in terms of logistics; the government could not afford to impose the same level of censorship as it had done before the war. The German invasion could not be concealed. [End Page 252] Moreover, there were not enough censors during wartime to control everything which was published or broadcast. The war, therefore, brought to the country a sudden freedom of speech that had no precedent in the Stalinist years. Several of the contributors note that there was a sort of compromise between the authorities and Soviet artists: Stalin and the party allowed artists to express themselves more freely, provided they support the national cause wholeheartedly. Such a compromise was not so difficult since the brutality of the German invasion made artists forget their alienation to the Soviet regime and side genuinely with their government in the struggle against the Nazis.

The book shows how quickly the people of the Soviet Union perceived this newly acquired freedom of speech—albeit a limited one...and how receptive they became once the arts began to speak sincerely to them. Unlike official pre-war Soviet culture, which was seen as dull and pompous, what was produced during the war had much more appeal. Artists spoke about human feelings of anguish and uncertainty, of fear and of hope. This art was not only...