Artistic aesthetics of socialist realism in Zh. Zalikhanov’s creative work

Abstract

The research aims to substantiate the positive influence of the aesthetics of socialist realism on the creative work of the Balkar writer Zh. Zh. Zalikhanov (1917-1996), who was at the forefront of the development of written literature in the native language. The paper examines the main methodological principles of the aesthetics of socialist realism: a truthful, historically concrete reflection of reality, the assertion of new socialist ideals and relations aimed at the formation of the literature that is “national in form and socialist in content”. Using Zh. Zh Zalikhanov’s novels “Mountain Eagles”, “Burning Hearts” and “The Baksan Star” as an example, the paper explores the main ways of artistic expression that give the writer’s works national specificity and colouring (images, symbols, signs). Zh. Zh. Zalikhanov’s creative work reflects such principles of the socialist realism method as historicism, artistic truth, national spirit, which are used as means of historical truth (depiction of specific events, biographies of real historical figures), on the one hand, and as ways of reflecting national specifics (anthroponymic and toponymic units, phraseological expressions, proverbs and sayings, etc.), on the other hand. The research is original in that it is the first to examine the aesthetic principles of artistic merit in the creative work of Zh. Zh. Zalikhanov using not only a historical but also a culturological approach to a literary work as a “culture code”. The research findings have shown that the socialist realism method contributed to the development of new means of visual and artistic expression of Soviet literature and the formation of new principles of artistic merit of the literature “national in form and socialist in content”.