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Soviet Union [USSR] Culture and the Arts
Progress in developing the education system was mixed during
the Brezhnev years. In the 1960s and 1970s, the percentage of
working-age people with secondary and higher education steadily
increased. Yet at the same time, access to higher education grew
more difficult. By 1980 the percentage of secondary school
graduates admitted to universities had dropped to only two-thirds
of the 1960 figure. Students accepted into the universities
increasingly came from professional families rather than from
worker or peasant households. This trend toward the perpetuation of
the educated elite was not only a function of the superior cultural
background of elite families but was also, in many cases, a result
of their power to influence the admissions procedures.
Progress in science also enjoyed varied success under Brezhnev.
In the most visible test of its ability--the race with the United
States to put a man on the moon--the Soviet Union failed, but
through persistence the Soviet space program continued to make
headway in other areas. In general, despite leads in such fields as
metallurgy and thermonuclear fusion, Soviet science lagged behind
that of the West, hampered in part by the slow development of
computer technology.
In literature and the arts, a greater variety of creative works
became accessible to the public than had previously been available.
True, the state continued to determine what could be legally
published or performed, punishing persistent offenders with exile
or prison. Nonetheless, greater experimentation in art forms became
permissible in the 1970s, with the result that more sophisticated
and subtly critical work began to be produced. The regime loosened
the strictures of socialist realism; thus, for instance, many
protagonists of the novels of author Iurii Trifonov concerned
themselves with problems of daily life rather than with building
socialism. In music, although the state continued to frown on such
Western phenomena as jazz and rock, it began to permit Western
musical ensembles specializing in these genres to make limited
appearances. But the native balladeer Vladimir Vysotskii, widely
popular in the Soviet Union, was denied official recognition
because of his iconoclastic lyrics.
In the religious life of the Soviet Union, a resurgence in
popular devotion to the major faiths became apparent in the late
1970s despite continued de facto disapproval on the part of the
authorities. This revival may have been connected with the
generally growing interest of Soviet citizens in their respective
national traditions
(see Soviet Union USSR - Manifestations of National Assertiveness
, ch. 4).
Data as of May 1989
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