COURAGE

Mbledhje koleksionesh

Although it is not officially dated, Muncitor forestier (Forestry Worker) was probably painted in the late 1940s or early 1950s, when its author was trying to adapt his artistic creation to the new cultural policies. From the point of view of the technique used, the painting combines tempera and oil painting on plywood. According to the art historian Radu Popica, the painting Muncitor forestier (Forestry Worker) illustrates the “difficulties” encountered by Mattis-Teutsch in the process of adapting to socialist realism (Popica 2015, 12). The artist tried to combine techniques of his art from the 1930s with the precepts of socialist realism. However, this synthesis, called by the artist “constructive-realism,” failed to convince the authorities (Popica 2015, 13). As has been observed by Dan-Octavian Breaz, although Mattis-Teutsch’s art in the 1930s suggested the “new man” of socialist realism, the modernist techniques used by Mattis-Teutsch were in fact incompatible with socialist realism, because they were unsuitable for the purpose that art was supposed to serve in the new society (Breaz 2013, 124). This explains the negative reception of Mattis-Teutsch’s artistic creation in the 1950s, despite his honest attempts to integrate into the new cultural context.

The work belongs to Hans Mattis-Teutsch’s constructivist period. According to the art historian Gheorghe Vida, constructivism was assimilated by Mattis-Teutsch at the time of his involvement in the Romanian avant-garde during the 1920s and at the beginning of the 1930s (Vida 2009, 80). During this period, Mattis-Teutsch collaborated closely with groups of avant-garde artists formed around the cultural publications Contimporanul, Integral and Alge, sharing the artistic vision of these groups, as well as their socialist views. His artistic vision marked by constructivism was theorised in his work Kunstideologie. Stabilität und Aktivität im Kunstwerk published in interwar Germany (Mattis-Teutsch 1931). This vision, which sees art as a “messenger” of the “new man” in the “technological era without traditions,” is marked by the mobility and rhythm of modern life (Mattis-Teutsch 1977, 76–79). The work and rhythms specific to modern man are also central themes in this painting from the end of the 1920s, and the title of the work is a direct reference to the relationship between intellectuals and the proletariat in Marxist ideology. As with all the works of Hans Mattis-Teutsch created during the interwar period, this item could not be displayed during the 1950s due to the fact that the avant-garde techniques were in contradiction with socialist realism.

The handwritten letter from Matulaitis to the Academy of Sciences. In the letter, he criticises the Academy and the Institute of History. The letter (written in 1950) reflects very well the situation of Lithuanian historians during the late Stalinist period. Matulaitis, who spoke out about the need to research the history of the Lithuanian nation, came under pressure, was accused of ‘bourgeois nationalism’, and was dismissed from his job.

“Literature and the Cominform” is a newspaper article written by Predrag Matvejević (Mostar, 7 October 1932 – Zagreb, 2 February 2017) in which he critically reviews the breaking of the taboo on the Tito-Stalin Split (Yugoslav-Soviet Split) in 1948 and the Goli otok prison camp, and their analysis in Yugoslav literature, theatre and film in the early 1980s.    

The review was published in magazine Start on 24 April 1982. It was founded by newspaper company Vjesnik on 29 January 1969 as a semi-monthly automobile magazine. In the period 1969-1972, when it was edited by Andrinko Krile, such topics were soon left behind, and the magazine focused on interviews about topics avoided in other magazines, and by the mid-1970s it became a magazine that covered politics, culture and the media, to which the most prominent Croatian journalists and intellectuals contributed. Krile was removed from his post as a member of the Croatian Spring, and it was assessed that Start had “succumbed to the base impact of the West and was a part of the Westernisation of Croatia.” According to Božidar Novak, after the Croatian Spring was suppressed, the magazine was rigidly censured, and until the July 1973 it was obliged to pay the so-called “trash tax.” In the period 1973-1980, under editor Sead Saračević, it acquired a new form and journalistic expression. Topics like so-called high culture were added, the works of the world’s top artistic photographers were regularly published, and a prominent place was accorded to feuilletons on political and historical themes. In the period 1980-1987, under editor Mladen Pleše, the magazine focused on new topics such as rock and roll and it highlighted the writings of social analysts and covered sensitive domestic policy topics. This put the magazine in a difficult position, because the political leadership maintained strict watch to ensure that the policy of “With Tito after Tito” was not violated. Political pressure continued when liberal and critical politicians and scholars began to speak in the magazine’s pages. The magazine continued to come out until 22 June 1991.             

The article described above, like many other articles published in Start encompassed in the collection, are available for research and copying.