Sidorova G.P. Motherhood and Fatherhood in the Soviet Culture of the 1960s -1980s: Artistic Images and Remembrances

Abstract: The subject of the research is the images of motherhood and fatherhood in the Soviet society and culture of the 1960s - 1980s between traditions and innovations, ideology and everyday life. The images of motherhood and fatherhood are being viewed from the point of view of collisions between the traditional and industrial (socialist) societies, between the socialist ideology and everyday life as they are presented in the images of the Soviet popular art and memories about those times. By analyzing iconic pieces of the popular Soviet art of the 1960s - 1980s and completing her analysis with published remembrances and her own memories, the author of the article attempts to trace back the dynamics of these sociocultural phenomena. In her research Sidorova uses the systems method, historical classification method, semiotic method and comparative historical method. According to the author, analysis of motherhood and fatherhood through artistic images allows to discover codes transmitting peculiarities and dynamics of culture. This is due to the fact that art has a capability of the in-depth generalization which is expressed in artistic images affecting both our hearts and minds. Art can create an integral image of the human world. The main conclusions of the research are the following: the Soviet socialist culture of the industrial society in the 1960s - 1980s preserved features of the traditional society along with technological breakthroughs and rationalized behavior patterns. Innovation-oriented culture contradictory engaged old and new forms of traditional culture in the Soviet socialist culture of the industrial society of the 1960s - 1980s. The same system's peculiarity can be found in the instutition of the family and its reproductive and socializing functions. Being part of a cultural actor's axiological system (human and society in general), motherhood and fatherhood and parents-and-children relationships violated between traditional values and new values of the innovative society. Moreover, results of the systems analysis demonstrated that motherhood and fatherhood and parents-and-children relationships violated between socialist ideology and everyday life as the 'microlevel of life' and individual's actual living space filled with particular items and events. Here we can observe the duality of the sociocultural phenomenon and consequently the duality of its representation in artistic images. 

Keywords: