The Triumph of the Artist

The Triumph of the Artist

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The official Soviet discourse gradually describes the reality of the country in terms that do not correspond to common experience, as if words could create things. The importance of this doctrine far exceeds the aesthetic field, it represents in the pure state one of the dominant features of Soviet society under Stalin because it consecrates the universal reign of lies, says Todorov.

Both a connoisseur of the Soviet Union and a great interpreter of works of art, Tzvetan Todorov wanted to illuminate the ideological relations between those he calls "creative artists" and political power beginning with the October Revolution. How did the artists announce the revolution? Back then, how did they obey or escape socialist realism that was anxious to annihilate all creation? Todorov explores the fate of leading artists, Mayakovsky, Pasternak, Bulgakov or Mandelstam, and dwells on the unique work of the painter Kasimir Malevich, whose plurality of artistic paths echoes the intensity of his commitment. The Triumph of the Artist is ultimately the power of art over those who want it dead.

The Triumph of the artist. Revolution and artists - Russia: 1917-1941 compiles half a century of research, deepening the perspective of historians and critics when it comes to artists in the broadest sense. Todorov explores a complex, sometimes ambiguous, binding and, in this sense, even fruitful relationship between political leadership in Russia and the "artist creator".


  • ISBN: 978-953-8075-52-0
  • Dimensions: 142x205 m
  • Number of pages: 236
  • Cover: paperback
  • Year of the edition: 2018
  • Original title: Le Triomphe de lʼartiste. La révolution et les artistes - Russie: 1917 - 1941.
  • Original language: French
  • Translation: Ursula Burger