Socialist-realist architecture and literature of the »Thaw period«: literarization of space and spatialization of literature Socialist-Realist Architecture and Literature of the »Thaw Period«: Literarization of Space and Spatialization of Literature

Kozina, Filip. (2011). Socialist-realist architecture and literature of the »Thaw period«: literarization of space and spatialization of literature Socialist-Realist Architecture and Literature of the »Thaw Period«: Literarization of Space and Spatialization of Literature. Umjetnost riječi : časopis za znanost o književnosti, 55(3-4). pp. 163-193. ISSN 0503-1853

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Abstract

This paper explores the connections between the socialist-realist renovation of Warsaw and literature. The author questions the thesis that Marxist ideology completely neglected space in favour of time, in order to show that space, that is, architecture and town planning, had an active didactic role in so called engineering of society and souls during the cultural reign of the said ideology (1947–1956) and that literature served as a medium for its verbalization, legitimization and foundation. The author uses the method of humane geography to interpret goals, functions and meanings of the most significant projects of the socialist-realist renovation of Warsaw and points to their literary propagandist performative manifestations of desirable spatial practices. He then offers analytical standing points for the study of subversive manifestations of real spaces in the literature of the »thaw« period that followed socialist-realism. The author sees literarized space and spatialized literature as guardians of historical-spatial identity of Warsaw.

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