Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky, in addition to his significant contributions as a writer and journalist, was an important Russian Marxist revolutionary, Bolshevik, and the first head of the Soviet Union's Ministry of Education. He is perhaps best remembered as a pioneer in the field of Marxist art analysis, which is the subject of this collection of essays. In these essays, Lunacharsky analyzes art as both a part of the superstructure of a given class-based system of social production, as well as an industry in and of itself, and how art exists in relation to a given class. What can we learn about society through art? Can art be a tool of social change? These are just some of the questions that Lunacharsky will approach in the coming essays.
This reading contains the prefaces to this edition and the 1926 edition, and the essays "Art and Marxism" and "Art and Industry."
I am reading from the newly-translated and edited version of these essays published by Germinal Publications. You can purchase a copy here:
https://www.lulu.com/shop/anatoly-lunacharsky/the-marxist-theory-of-art/paperback/product-4zge58.html?page=1&pageSize=4
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