Li Kh. Existential World View in the Unofficial Soviet Art

Abstract: The present article is devoted to studying unofficial artwork of the Soviet Union in the 1950s - 1960s that expressed existential views of artists such as V. Sidur, E. Kropivnitsky, L. Kropivnitsky and V. Yakovlev. These artists who had experienced the terror of the war and abasement of human dignity not only in Stalin's GULAG but already living in Soviet shared apartments expressed loneliness, suffering, fear, inescapable anxiety and desire for freedom in their artworks. These themes and topics covered by the aforesaid artists allow to interpret their artwork in terms of existentialism which influence was worldwide. The methodological and theoretical basis of the present article involves a number of researches made in the following branches of knowledge: art history, philosophy, literary studies and psychoanalysis. The interdisciplinary influence of the diverse analysis methods enabled a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the creative life of the 20th century artists. After the Second World War existentialism appeared as a result of new trends in art not only in the West but also in the East and Soviet Union. Such worldwide influence of existentialism is due to the common experience of war. The research of the unofficial Soviet art with reference to existentialism is important for understanding values of unofficial art in terms of the world art of the last century.   

Keywords: