Bucharin, Nikolaj, Kurt Konrad, and Karel Teige.

[FIRST PRINTING OF TEIGE'S THEORY ON SURREALISM AND SOCIALIST REALISM] Socialistický realismus: sborník [Socialist realism: an anthology]. Knihovna levé fronty [The Left Front Library], vol. 9.; Knihovna levé fronty, sv. 9.

Prague: Knihovna Levé Fronty (Jarmila Prokopová), 1935. Octavo (23 × 14.5 cm). Original printed wrappers; 184 pp. Gatherings loose, as issued; very minor wear to lower overlapping edge and lower spine; faint sun-tanning near spine; still a very good copy. Item #P5138

Scarce anthology issued as part of the famous series "Knihovna levé fronty" ("The Left Front Library"), which was issued by the eponymous group of leftist artists and intellectuals, which took the place of the earlier Devětsil group around Karel Teige, Jaroslav Seifert, S. K. Neumann and others. The book contains three contributions on the topic of socialist realism: Bucharin's 1934 speech "Poetry, Poetics and the Problems of Poetry in the U.S.S.R.", Marxist literary and theater critic Kurt Konrad's essay on socialist realism in Czechoslovakia, and finally Teige's important contribution entitled "Socialist Realism and Surrealism" (Socialistický realismus a surrealismus).

Teige (1900–1951) was a formative member of the avant-garde movement “Devětsil” and served as a key conduit for West European avant-garde and Surrealist tendencies to the Czech Republic in the interwar period, in addition to his own prolific work as an editor,graphic designer, and theoretician. In the present work Teige presents his argument for the compatibility of his concept of aesthetics, informed by French Surrealism and Soviet Constructivism, with the strict Stalinist form of Socialist Realism that had emerged by 1934. At the same time he was highly critical of this kitchy historicist form of realism, which had begun to dominate not only literature, but also architecture and the other visual arts. The relevance of Surrealism and avant-garde aesthetics to socialism was keenly discussed at various evenings organized by the "Left Front," particular insofar as the Surrealist Group opened its first exhibition in January of 1935, with Breton also visiting Prague that same year.

See also: Shawn Clybor, "Socialist (Sur)Realism: Karel Teige, Ladislav Štoll, and the Politics of Communist Culture in Czechoslovakia" (in History of Communism in Europe, 2, 2011).

As of May 2025, KVK, OCLC only show four copies in North America.

Price: €500.00

other currencies