QuoteProject
The solemn pledge to abstain from telling the truth was called socialist realism.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote critiques the idea of compromising truth for ideological or artistic conformity.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's quote highlights the conflict between truth and artistic expression, particularly in the context of socialist realism, which often demands that artists prioritize political ideology over factual representation. This can lead to a distortion of reality, where the commitment to an ideology overshadows genuine truth, questioning the integrity of artistic endeavors in politically controlled environments.

Themes

TruthSocialismArtRealismIdeology

In practice

Example use cases

Using this quote in an art critique to discuss the impact of political ideology on creativity.

More from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

At what point, then, should one resist? When one's belt is taken away? When one is ordered to face into a corner? When one crosses the threshold of one's home? An arrest consists of a series of incidental irrelevancies, of a multitude of things that do not matter, and there seems no point in arguing about one of them individually...and yet all these incidental irrelevancies taken together implacably constitute the arrest.
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynRead
To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good... Ideology - that is what gives devildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors.
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynRead
Today when we say the West we are already referring to the West and to Russia. We could use the word 'modernity' if we exclude Africa, and the Islamic world, and partially China.
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynRead
To destroy a people, you must first sever their roots.
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynRead
Like a bicycle, like a wheel that, once rolling, is stable only so long as it keeps moving but falls when its momentum stops, so the game between a man and woman, once begun, can exist only so long as it progresses. If the forward movement today is no more than it was yesterday, the game is over.
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynRead
It's an universal law-- intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education. An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynRead

Similar quotes

And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people as one of many hoops that made one circle.
Black ElkRead
A private relationship of worshiping God is the greatest essential element of spiritual fitness.
Oswald ChambersRead
The age of nations has passed. Now, unless we wish to perish, we must shake off our old prejudices and build the Earth. The more scientifically I regard the world, the less can I see any possible biological future for it except in the active consciousness of its unity.
Pierre Teilhard De ChardinRead
The communism of combined wealth and capital, the outgrown of overweening cupidity and selfishness which assiduously undermines the justice and integrity of free institutions, is not less dangerous than the communism of oppressed poverty and toil which, exasperated by injustice and discontent, attacks with wide disorder the citadel of misrule.
Grover ClevelandRead
Waking consciousness is dreaming – but dreaming constrained by external reality
Oliver SacksRead
You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong, is not right.
John LewisRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.

Quote by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn | QuoteProject