INFLUENCE OF SOVIET IDEOLOGICAL ATTITUDES ON THE DICTIONARY INTERPRETATION OF THE NAMES OF ART MOVEMENTS AND STREAMS

Abstract

The paper is devoted to analysis of the problem of the influence of totalitarian ideology on the spiritual and cultural life of society as well as of the reflection of these processes in the lexicographical works of the Soviet era. In recent years a scientific interest in the problems of interrelation between the language and ideology increased. However, the processes of the ideologization of the lexical items related to the sphere of art have become beyond the attention of researchers. The paper is aimed to reveal the peculiarities of the influence of Soviet ideological attitudes on the formation of the dictionary definitions of the nominative units related to the sphere of art, on the example of the names of art movements and streams recorded in the Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language in 11 volumes (1970–1980). The investigation uses the descriptive method and the component analysis method as the best suited to this study. The techniques for the classification and systematization of lexical material are also involved. Special attention is paid to the enlightenment of the official policy in the sphere of culture and art, namely to the imposition of a single method of the artistic reflection of reality, the socialist realism, and to the organization of revelatory campaigns against artists. Literature and art under the party control implemented the ideological and aesthetic programmes, needed to ensure the dictatorship of the Communist party. The whole history of the development of Soviet art was marked by opposition to global achievements, total domination of socialist realism, destruction of dissent, complete ideologization of art and its subordination to the requirements of the political order.

It is proven that these processes are reflected in the dictionary interpretation of the semantics of the names of art movements and streams. Among the analyzed lexical items only the word "realism" is fixed in the dictionary having a positive appraisal meaning, while all the others with distinctly negative ones. A special role in giving negative connotations to the words belongs to the adjective of "formalistic", which is used in almost every dictionary entry of the studied concepts. This word performs the expressive function in that context that indicates its desemantization. The negative connotation of the lexemes was amplified by using illustrative material, chosen from various authoritative sources that demonstrated the features of the functioning of the words in the language. The use of ideological markers in the definitions and illustrative material as well as important for the Communist ideology citations indicates the ideologization and politicization of lexemes related to the sphere of art. It proves in addition that in the Soviet times the ideology influenced not only on the social and political nominative items, but also on other thematic groups of vocabulary.