| Summary: | Totalitarianism, Realism and the Anxiety of History
This essay examines the problem of totalitarian art and totalitarianism by studying the relationship between art, society and history in realism, both as a historical literary practice and as an aesthetic doctrine that is till dominant today. Because the understanding of the development of society and art in Nazi Germany tends to dominate the understanding of totalitarianism, scholarly and popular discussions of ideology in totalitarian art has been dominated by a problematization of myth and utopia. However, this paper takes its starting point in Socialist Realism in order to trace the tendency towards a totalizing explanation of the world in terms of social and historical reality in realism. It also discusses the implications of the impact of realism on art in late modernity to further our understanding of the possible return of totalitarianism and fascism today.
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