Meanings
- historicalThe ideological repression of artists and intellectuals in the Soviet Union during the 1940s and 1950s.
The Zhdanovshchina thesis about the party spirit of literature was based on the Marxist-Leninist doctrine of society and of forms of social ideology.
1972, Linden M. Renner, Andrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov: A Political-career Sketch, page 812 more examples
Traditional accounts portray the Zhdanovshchina as a return to the prewar strident party line, the reassertion of ideological control over culture, and the purging of literature and the arts of Western influences.
2001, Serhy Yekelchyk, “Celebrating the Soviet Present: The Zhdanovshchina campaign in Ukrainian Literature and the Arts”, in Donald J. Raleigh, editor, Provincial Landscapes: Local Dimensions of Soviet Power, 1917-1953, page 256The commencement of the Zhdanovshchina can be dated to the founding of a newspaper that would be the voice of the Central Committee's cultural apparatus until 1950, when the focus on ideology was supplanted by greater attention to personnel issues.
2018, Kiril Tomoff, Creative Union: The Professional Organization of Soviet Composers, 1939-1953, page 98
Origin
- Russianждановщина
- EnglishZhdanovshchina
From Russian ждановщина (ždanovščina); after Andrei Zhdanov, who was in charge of the "Anti-Cosmopolitan Campaign" under Stalin
More words from Russian
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Zhdanovshchina. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Zhdanovshchina
“Zhdanovshchina.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Zhdanovshchina. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Zhdanovshchina,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Zhdanovshchina.
Source: Zhdanovshchina on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.