Author of The Sociology of Art who led Soviet Marxist literary scholarship in the 1920s; first chief editor of the Literary Encyclopedia
Born to a German family in Moscow, he studied Western European literature at Moscow University, stayed on there and joined the RSDLP in 1905. After the revolution he briefly held commissar posts in Moscow, and in the 1920s, as professor at Moscow University, head of literature at the Institute of Red Professors and editor of Literature and Marxism, he led Soviet Marxist literary scholarship. His Sociology of Art (1926) sought to derive artistic styles directly from the social forms of their age. Failing the 1929 Academy of Sciences election at first, he was elected on a second ballot and died that year. Regarded as the chief theorist of Marxist aesthetics in the 1920s, he was singled out by Lifshitz in the 1930s as the representative of relativism.
Also known as: V. M. Fritsche
Activities and affiliations
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1905–
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP)
Scholarship and theory -
1921–1929
Soviet Union state institutionsMoscow University professor; head of literature, Institute of Red ProfessorsMain
Scholarship and theory -
Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks
Scholarship and theory
Career Timeline
- 1889–1894Faculty of History and Philology, Moscow University
- 1905–1907Lecturers’ group of the Moscow committee of the RSDLP
- 1914Founding editor of Zhurnalist
- 1917Commissar for the protection of crown property in Moscow
- 1921–1925Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences, Moscow University
- 1922Director of the Institute of Language and Literature
- 1926The Sociology of Art
- 1928–1929Editor of Literature and Marxism
- 1929Elected to the Academy of Sciences on a second ballot