Plato and art censorship (fwd)

[Daniel Rancour-Laferriere]

Good question.  The trouble is, censorship has always existed in Russia,
not just during the Soviet period, but also in the earlier tsarist period.
Censorship there is not specifically a "Marxist" thing, but a Russian
thing.  Censorship did not disappear until the late 1980s- early 90s.  For
more detail on this, I would recommend contacting my colleague Yuri
Druzhnikov, who teaches a course on censorship in Russia
(ydruzhnikov at ucdavis.edu).

Cheers,
Daniel R-L
darancourlaferriere at ucdavis.edu


At 09:39 AM 11/18/99 -0500, you wrote:
>This query was forwarded to me from a colleague in classics. Always
>interesting to learn what other fields want from ours...
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Sun, 14 Nov 1999 22:55:43 -0500 (EST)
>From: Martha.Risser at Mail.Trincoll.Edu
>To: katherine.lahti at Mail.Trincoll.Edu
>Subject: Plato and art censorship (fwd)
>
>
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Sun, 14 Nov 1999 20:30:22 +0530
>From: A. Basu <anupam at COMPORTS.COM>
>Reply-To: History of the Ancient Mediterranean
>    <ANCIEN-L at LISTSERV.LOUISVILLE.EDU>
>To: ANCIEN-L at LISTSERV.LOUISVILLE.EDU
>Subject: Plato and art censorship
>
>Hello,
>        I just read the Republic and was wondering if any one had found
>similarities between what Plato says about art and the practice of
>censorship in the USSR. It seems to me that the reasons he gives for
>this(e.g. -The state needs brave soldiers - musical modes other than the
>Dorian and Phrygian are not conducive to courage and self-control -
>therefore we will not allow other modes) are very similar to the ideals that
>formed the basis of such censorship in Russia.
>
>Now, I am not very knowledgeable about the actual circumstances of Russia
>but it seems to me that their censorship had a theoretical basis other than
>than the mere Big Brother attitude that 'anything against the Party is bad'.
>That is why not only subversive literature but also much apparently
>apolitical art(the composers - Prokofiev and Shoshtakovich for example) also
>faced censorship.
>
>Could anyone point me to any such 'Marxist' discussion of Plato's
>aesthetics. I somehow feel that overall the Communist states in Russia and
>now in China are the closest we have come to a theoretically _'constructed'_
>state such as the Republic advocates though I realize how far from any
>Communist ideals Plato is.
>
>Thanks for any help.
>Anupam.
><anupam at presidency.com>
>