The Relationship Between Postmodernism and Socialist Realism in the Works of Marģeris Zariņš
The Relationship Between Postmodernism and Socialist Realism in the Works of Marģeris Zariņš

Summary/Abstract: This article examines two works of one of the first Latvian postmodernists, Marģeris Zariņš (1910–1993): Viltotais Fausts jeb Pārlabota un papildināta pavārgrāmata (Counterfeit Faust or Corrected and Supplemented Cookbook, 1973) and Trauksmainie Trīsdesmit Trīs (The Turbulent Thirty Three, 1988). The author of the article analyzes the postmodern techniques used in these books with a purpose of criticizing and deconstructing the ideological framework of Soviet regime and the Socialist Realism art that was prevalent during that era. Three additional research questions are asked to explore this thesis. First: how is the language used to go against the Socialist Realism grain? What are its peculiarities? Second: what “decadent” and modernistic cultural references and tropes are used? How do they contradict the Socialist Realism standards? Third: what Socialist Realism tropes and archetypes are reinterpreted or confirmed? With what aim? What is their relation with more modernistic elements in the both books? In this research, the methods of close reading and comparative analysis were used. It is concluded that Socialist Realism and socialism is criticized and challenged in both of the aforementioned works: in Counterfeit Faust predominantly through the use of language and intertextual connections with Western modernism and postmodernism, and in The Turbulent Thirty Three by combining fourth-wall-breaking and surreal episodes with a harsh satire of Soviet life.

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