| Summary: | From 1934 — when guidelines for Socialist Realism were established at the first All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers — to Stalin’s death in 1953, Soviet folklore deliberately promoted the new social order and encouraged the rural masses to support it. So-called Soviet Tales (sovetskie skazki), one of the most interesting but under-researched folktale forms to arise in the 1930s, were prose wondertales created through the collaborative efforts of traditional rural story-tellers and “party-minded” folklorists, who provided the tellers with new motifs and plots and “collected” and published the results as folklore. The Soviet Tale was conceived as an ideological weapon for the agitation and education of the rural masses. Its goals were to promote class consciousness and “Socialist patriotism” among the peasantry. Soviet Tales promoted the goals of the new regime and its particular realization of what it regarded as the masses’ dream for a better life. Themes and motifs ranged from the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War to social and technological progress; from the new role of women in Soviet society to the opening of the Moscow Metro and the VSKhV (All-Union Agricultural Exhibition); and from the Stalin-era “cults” of aviation, Arctic exploration, and the “Wise Leader” himself to warnings against foreign and internal enemies. These tales promoted three types of heroes. First, the ideal people of Communism: strong, healthy, young peasants and workers who support revolutionary transformation. Second, the brave and self-sacrificing heroes of the Russian Civil War such as Vasilii Chapaev and Semyon Budennyi. Third, Soviet leaders — especially Stalin, the “Hero with Black Curls.” The Soviet Tale offers a paradoxical representation of the historical and cultural development of its time. On the one hand, it reveals Soviet propaganda and the evolution of the “cult” of Stalin. On the other, it may well express certain aspirations of the peasantry and other working people. My thesis offers a representative ...
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