Introduction: Socialist imaginations

The introduction to this volume provides an outline of the concept of Socialist Imaginations as an umbrella term to study how the symbolic, mythic, and visionary aspects of socialism were transformed into aesthetic practice. Following three levels of analysis - religion, aesthetics, and narrative - we explain how besides rational argument, intellectual debate, and alleged scientific proof or political constraint, socialist ideas became socially and culturally effective. It is by means of stories, images, and rituals that were omnipresent, communicated, learnt, and repeated in mass culture that the utopian, mythical, and imaginative aspects of socialism became manifest in ways studied in this volume.