Zhdanovshchina
즈다노프시나
A sweeping Soviet cultural-ideological campaign initiated by Andrei Zhdanov in 1946 that tightened party control over literature, music, philosophy, and the sciences while imposing an extreme anti-Western line. It began with the August 1946 Central Committee resolution against the journals Zvezda and Leningrad, leading to the expulsion of Mikhail Zoshchenko and Anna Akhmatova, and escalated through the 1948 anti-formalism campaign targeting Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and other major composers, spreading into an assault on cosmopolitanism and nationalist claims of Russian scientific primacy. The campaign outlived Zhdanov himself and lasted until Stalin's death, marking the most rigid period in Soviet cultural history.
In depth
Background and Development
The Zhdanovshchina began with the Central Committee Orgburo resolution of 14 August 1946, 'On the Journals Zvezda and Leningrad.' Andrei Zhdanov drove this resolution, attacking Mikhail Zoshchenko's satirical stories and Anna Akhmatova's lyric poetry as 'ideologically empty' and 'bourgeois' works, resulting in both writers' expulsion from the Union of Soviet Writers. The resolution was not aimed merely at two journals and two authors but signaled a reassertion of party control over all of Soviet culture.
The campaign spread rapidly from literature to music. The Central Committee resolution of 10 February 1948, 'On Muradeli's Opera The Great Friendship,' marked the start of the so-called anti-formalism campaign. Major Soviet composers (Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, Aram Khachaturian, and Nikolai Myaskovsky among them) were denounced for 'formalism,' 'abuse of dissonance,' and 'decadent modernism.' Most were forced into public self-criticism at a special congress of the Composers' Union.
Anti-Cosmopolitanism and the Spread to Science
Another key pillar of the Zhdanovshchina was the campaign against 'rootless cosmopolitanism' (bezrodny kosmopolitizm). This manifested as a drive to eliminate cultural servility toward the West and assert Russian scientific and technological primacy. In philosophy, Georgy Aleksandrov's History of Western European Philosophy (1947) drew direct criticism from Zhdanov; in biology, Trofim Lysenko's anti-Mendelian doctrine was enshrined as the official line. Similar purges followed in literary criticism, historiography, and linguistics.
Zhdanov himself died suddenly in August 1948, but the campaign he unleashed continued until Stalin's death in 1953. In its later phases, anti-cosmopolitanism took on increasingly anti-Semitic overtones, culminating in the Doctors' Plot affair of late 1952.
Historical Assessment
The Zhdanovshchina is regarded as the nadir of Soviet cultural history. Between 1946 and 1953, Soviet literature, art, and science experienced their most severe creative stagnation and international isolation. On 28 May 1958, the Central Committee acknowledged the 1948 music resolution as erroneous and rehabilitated the composers. In 1988, the 1946 resolution on the literary journals was also officially revoked.
Related people
Sources
- britannica.com Britannica entry confirming Zhdanovshchina as 'cultural policy of the Soviet Union during the Cold War period following World War II, calling for stricter government control of art and promoting an extreme anti-Western bias,' dating it 1946–1953, and noting its spread 'to other arts and gradually affected all spheres of intellectual activity', including 'philosophy, biology, medicine, and other sciences.'
- Wikipedia (EN) Wikipedia entry noting Zhdanovshchina as synonymous with Zhdanov Doctrine/Zhdanovism, initiated in 1946, covering the literary resolution against Zvezda and Leningrad, the 1948 anti-formalism campaign in music targeting Shostakovich and Prokofiev, and the broader anti-cosmopolitan campaign.
- soviethistory.msu.edu James von Geldern essay at Seventeen Moments in Soviet History, Michigan State University, characterizing zhdanovshchina as 'the somber name' associated with Zhdanov's three years of greatest power (1946–1948), covering the August 1946 literary attack, the anti-cosmopolitanism assault, and the 1947 creation of Cominform.
- Wikipedia (KO) Korean Wikipedia article using the term 즈다놉시나 (ждановщина) to describe the cultural revolution/cultural purge movement led by Zhdanov, confirming Korean-language usage of the term.