Professional paper
SOCIALIST REALISM IN CROATIAN AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHY
Vladko Lozić
; Fotoklub Zagreb
Abstract
From the earliest known civilisations, both art and culture
have had to submit to the dictates of society, if the group in
power is understood to mean society. After World War II and
the creation of the new Yugoslavia, radical social and political
changes took place in the area.
A new state formation was created based on the doctrine
of social realism. Our new amateur photography broke with
the surviving older understanding of art for art’s sake, with
cloying and unreal depictions.
In the Kingdom of Yugoslavia of that time the number of trained
and experienced photographers was quite small; there
were not ten clubs in the whole of the state. The artisans,
who mainly worked in the studio, mostly with portraiture, had
neither the knowledge nor the experience to get to grips with
the entirely new approach to photography in order to shoot
the development of huge factories, dams for hydroelectric generating
stations, the building of new railway lines and roads.
And it was amateur photographers that proved the most
suitable executors of the new tasks. These were people who,
associating in the then few clubs, had cultivated artistic and
decadent photography, precisely that which the new government
condemned. And yet they had an eye, experience in
the choice of subjects, and were sufficiently smart to be able
at a certain moment to join two very contradictory concepts.
And it happened that these people took excellent photographs
concerning the socialist development of the country, but in
line with all those principles of composition that the new
powers that be condemned so vigorously.
Socialist realist photography, created according to the directives
and dictates of the ruling social structures, was supposed
to become the photography of tomorrow, of the new,
idealised, global communist order. All the great dictatorships
have actually had the same ideas, but all came to a wretched
end. The same thing happened with Yugoslav social realist
photography. But in our current assessments we have to be
very circumspect concerning the visual competencies of this
politically directed photography.
Created according to the dictates and orders of the ruling
party though it was, it not only presented the moments of
socialist development, but also produced works of outstanding
artistry.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
174252
URI
Publication date:
3.2.2015.
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