Backlashes - Russian art (post-1917)

The portrait above is my favorite Russian painting, currently in the Russian Museum in St Petersburg. It is of the poet Anna Akhmatova (Altman, 1914). Before the Civil War, she composed bittersweet poems of the uncertainty of life and love. In 1921 her husband was executed, and she suffered decades of censorship and danger. She was in St Petersburg during the 900 Days (the Nazi siege) and published poems in Pravda to rally the city's morale. To many, she is a symbol both of what was lost when the Bolsheviks took power and of the power and resilience of art.

The backlash against tsarist art began after the Napoleonic Wars. When the Russian army occupied Paris in 1814, the aristocratic officers were exposed to the art and culture of Western Europe. When they returned home, they commissioned new types of painting, sculpture, writing, and fabrication in imitation of European models. This included landscapes, still lifes, vignettes of peasant life, scenes from history or mythology, and non-Russian subjects. (The portrait above clearly shows a Cubist influence.) This artistic counterculture matured fitfully alongside the nascent democracy movement. Despite some liberalization, the political power of the tsar was never broken until 1917, and so mainstream art remained narrow and medieval.

The Civil War was a horrific time. Art from that period is not for the faint of heart. When the Reds triumphed in 1921, they arrested or killed millions of "traitors," especially artists. After a short-lived thaw, Stalin took power and the Purges began. After 1932, all art was forced to conform to the rules of Soviet Realism, the artistic equivalent of Bolshevism. Victorious Red Army soldiers; happy peasants with their first tractors; diligent, smiling steelworkers; austere and determined Soviet leaders; and so on.

On a side note, many traditional crafts such as Niello metalwork (see below) were also destroyed after the Civil War. The USSR used the factories to mass-produce household goods. (Keep in mind that until 1917, 99.9% of the population lived in extreme poverty.) The artisans died of old age without sharing their secrets, and Niello died with them. Lately there has been a revival of interest in these art forms.
In the same way that Bolshevism is a travesty of the Menshevism (democratic socialism) which nourished it, Soviet Realism is a travesty of the pre-1917 artistic renaissance. It glorifies the beauty and hardship of everyday life, but only insofar as it helps the state. The nation's most brilliant artists were driven underground or forced to geld their work. Some works such as The Master and Marguerita resurfaced later, but many more are lost.

Someone once said that it was impossible to be honest, intelligent, and a good Communist at the same time. If you were honest and intelligent, you couldn't tolerate the hypocrisy; if you were intelligent and a good Communist, you must have been self-serving; if you were honest and a good Communist, you couldn't be very smart. This is doubly true of artists. Those with talent and insight censored themselves or were suppressed. Art is the enunciation of truth, and truth is the enemy of totalitarianism. So a peculiar feature of the USSR was that, while it was intrinsically anti-art, it supported art and culture generously. This led to their global pre-eminence in (mostly) apolitical art forms such as ballet or orchestral music, as well as technical excellence in a variety of art forms. Compared to tsarist art, Soviet art was beautiful and meaningful, but it still had the same authoritarian restrictions.

In the 70's and 80's, artistic restrictions gradually loosened. After the collapse of the USSR, nearly everything was permitted. Artistic funding also ended abruptly, but it seems there is enough public support to keep the culture flourishing. There are far more theatres, venues, galleries, and bookstores than in Canada. I'm optimistic.

Despite our best efforts, my father and I never managed to see any performance in Russia.