About the book: 2023 / The post-war policy of the Soviet authorities in the field of culture, associated with the name of Andrei Zhdanov, remained in memory as gloomy a time of stagnation and repression. In what context were the ideological campaigns that were later called “Zhdanovshchina” created? After the war, when mobilizing the population to build and defend socialism ceased to be an urgent task, the state faced the problem of restructuring the socialist realist discourse. Tatyana Shishkova in her book suggests looking at the events of those years as an attempt to subordinate culture to a new expansionist task - creating and presenting to the outside world the “correct” image of the USSR. The author analyzes how criticism of M. Zoshchenko, S. Eisenstein, D. Shostakovich and other figures in Zhdanov’s resolutions was due to the beginning of the Cold War and why a rethinking of relations with the West led to consequences that were disastrous for the entire Soviet project.