From periphery to center: Palekh and indigenization in the Russian heartland

Kritika

Volumn 3, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 427-458

  Jenks, Andrew ^a  

^a STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33845890722     PISSN: 1531023X     EISSN: 15385000     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/kri.2002.0038     Document Type: Review

References (78)

1. Terry Martin, "An Affirmative Action Empire: The Soviet Union as the Highest Form of Imperialism," in A State of Nations: Empire and Nation-Making in the Age of Lenin and Stalin, ed. Ronald Grigor Suny and Terry Martin (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 71-75, 78, 80-81;
2. Yuri Slezkine, "The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism," Slavic Review 53 (Summer 1994), 418-19, 424-26, 433-35, 442-44.
3. Paradoxically, alongside the wholesale destruction of church relics, the first decade of Soviet power was one of the most productive periods in the study and preservation of the Russian icon. Beginning in 1918, Narkompros funded expeditions to the centers of Orthodox iconography. From 1920-27, Igor' Emmanuilovich Grabar', head of the central icon restoration studios in Moscow, led 15 expeditions. Combing churches devastated by war and revolution, historians and archaeologists sought traces of the medieval masters Feofan Grek and Andrei Rublev, about whom Grabar' wrote biographies in 1922 and 1926, respectively. He and his associates were inspired by the discovery in 1904 of Rublev's famous "Trinity." For an extensive bibliography of Soviet literature on Andrei Rublev from 1926-66, see Grabar', O drevnerusskom iskusstve (Moscow: Nauka, 1966), 112-13 n. 1.
4. On the preservationist movement of the 1920s, see Richard Stites, "Iconoclastic Currents in the Russian Revolution: Destroying and Preserving the Past," in Bolshevik Culture: Experiment and Order in the Russian Revolution, ed. Abbot Gleason, Petet Kenez, and Richard Stites (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985), 1-25.
5. On the challenges of defining the positive content of socialism, see Stephen Kotkin, Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).
6. On the importance of Russian folk motifs in late imperial Russian culture, see Hubertus F. Jahn, Patriotic Culture in Russia during World War I (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995).
7. For the emergence of the cult of Pushkin, see V. S. Nepomniashchii and M. D. Filin, eds., Rechi o Pushkine: 1880-1960s gody (Moscow: "Tekst," 1999).
8. On the growth of Russian folk arts and crafts in the late imperial period, see Alison Hilton, Russian Folk Art (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995)
9. and Wendy Salmond, Arts and Crafts in Late Imperial Russia: Reviving the Kustar Art Industries, 1870-1917 (New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
10. On the elite infatuation with Muscovy and pre-Petrine Rus' after the 1861 emancipation, see Richard Wortman, Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy, vol. 2;
11. From Alexander II to the Abdication of Nicholas II (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).
12. For the development of Russian icon painting as a national symbol in imperial Russia, see the first three chapters of my Ph.D. dissertation, "The Nation in a Box: The Production of Russian and Socialist Identity, 1814-1991" (Stanford University, 2002).
13. This article's understanding of modern national identity draws principally on the so-called constructivist school. This approach sees national identities as a byproduct of modern industrial society. The perceived breakdown of traditions, rapid urbanization, and massive demographic shifts prompted a search for common symbols, cultural practices, and historical narratives. This symbolic-mythological complex, propagated through visual and print media, helped unify the newly forming society. Nations are thus modern inventions, even when they invoke a continuous history rooted in a supposedly ancient, primordial past. On modern nationalism and national identity, see Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983);
14. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 2nd ed. (London and New York: Verso, 1991);
15. and E, J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
16. Vladimir Pavlovich Lapshin, Khudozhnik Aleksei Mikhailovich Korin 1865-1923: Sbornik materialov i katalog vystavki proizvedenii (Moscow: Sovetskii khudozhnik, 1981), 152, 156, 170-71.
17. "Stranitsy letopisi," Prizyv, 5 November 1994, 2.
18. Efim Vikhrev, Palekh (Iaroslavl': Verkhne-Volzhskoe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo, 1974), 127.
19. Vikhrev, ed., Paleshane: Zapiski palekhskikh khudozhnikov oh ikh zhizni i tvorchestve, napisannye letom 1932 goda i illiustrirovannye imi samimi (Moscow: Moskovskoe tovarishchestvo pisatelei, 1934), 34-35.
20. Anatolii Vasil'evich Bakushinskii, Iskusstvo Palekha (Moscow-Leningrad: Academia, 1934), 117.
21. Bakushinskii, hkusstvo Palekha, 205.
22. V. Kochupalov, "Stranitsy letopisi," Prizyv, 5 November 1994, 2;
23. Vikhrev, ed.,Paleshane, 35;
24. N. Voitinskaia, "Palekhovtsy," Nizhegorodskaia iarmarka, 1 September 1926, 2;
25. Bakushinskii, Iskusstvo Palekha, 205-06.
26. On the emergence of the market for Russian arts and crafts before 1917, see Salmond, Arts and Crafts in Late Imperial Russia.
27. Glazunov, who was largely ignored in the official histories later written about Palekh, was remembered fondly by most Palekhians, even after his arrest as an enemy of the people during the Terror. Iakov Aleksandrovich Tugendkhol'd, "Kustar' i revoliutsiia," Izvestiia, 2 October 1924, 7;
28. "Kustarnoe iskusstvo na Parizhskoi vystavke," Izvestiia, 15 February 1925, 5;
29. Liudmila Pirogova, Palekh: Istoriia i sovremennost' (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo "Iskusstvo," 1994), 181.
30. Eksport kustarno-khudozhestvennykh izdelii i kovrov (January 1931), 12;
31. Vitalii Timofeevich Kotov, Khudozhnik Ivan Golikov (Iaroslavl': Verkhne-Volzhskoe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo, 1973), 20.
32. The boxes were from the village of Fedoskino. Since the beginning of the 19th century, Fedoskino, just south of Moscow, had produced a variety of papier-mâché boxes for perfume, soaps, snuff, candies, and the like. Unlike the Palekhians, the Fedoskinites were not connected with religious traditions. They painted in a realistic manner, producing copies of Russian realist painters from the 19th century, troikas, Russian landscapes, Russian barons on a hunting trip with their Russian wolfhounds, peasants drinking tea from a samovar, and so forth. For a history of Fedoskino before 1917 and under Soviet power, see Galina Ialovenko, Russkie khudozhestvennye laki (Moscow: Vsesoiuznoe kooperativnoe izdatel'stvo, 1959), 7-10,16-26.
33. Viktor Vasil'evich Poltoratskii, "Zhivye rodniki," Nash sovremennik, no. 2 (1970), 103.
34. Kotov, Khudozhnik Ivan Golikov, 21-25;
35. Aleksei Nikolaevich Reinson-Pravdin, Ivan Ivanovich Golikov (Moscow: Sovetskii khudozhnik, 1956), 9-10, 13.
36. Tugendkhol'd, "'Russkoe' i 'sovetskoe' iskusstvo v Parizhe," Izvestiia, 6 October 1925, 6.
37. On the revival of craft industries in the Soviet period, see Hilton, Russian Folk Art, 264-65, 270. Lenin, in April 1919, signed a decree "On Measures to Assist the Kustar' Industries." See Hilton, 264. Hilton also notes the striking continuity between the revival of craft industries in the late imperial and early Soviet periods.
38. Lunacharskii, "Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i iskusstvo," Izvestiia, 29 January, 5 February, 19 February 1922,
39. reprinted in idem, Ob iskusstve: Tom 2 (Russkoe sovetskoe iskusstvo) (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1982), 116.
40. reprinted in Galina Andreevna Belaia, Iz istorii sovetskoi esteticheskoi mysli 1917-1932: Sbornik materialov (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1980), 71;
41. reprint of Lunacharskii speech in Petrograd, 10 October 1918, in Ob iskusstve, 58-59, 57.
42. reprinted in Ob iskusstve, 67-68.
43. Tugendkhol'd, "Promyslovaia kooperatsiia i khudozhestvennaia promyshlennost'," Vserossiiskaia vystavka khudozhestvennoi promyshlennosti, no. 2 (1923), 23.
44. I. Golikov, "Skvoz' buri epokhi," in Paleshane, 83-84.
45. Tugendkhol'd, "Itogi khudozhestv.-promyshl. vystavki," Izvestiia, 11 May 1923, 6;
46. Idem, "Palekhskie laki," Iskusstvo, no. 2 (1925), 205;
47. L. Sosnovskii, "Kustarnyi otdel vystavki," Vestnik promyslovoi kooperatsii, nos. 3-4 (October-November 1923), 28-30. Savaof is one of the names for God in Orthodox Christianity.
48. Smitten with Russian exotica, Italy eliminated most import duties on Russian arts and crafts in its trade agreement with the Soviet Union in 1924. Tugendkhol'd, "Sovetskoe iskusstvo i vystavka v Venetsii," Izvestiia, 29 March 1924, 6;
49. France's diplomatic recognition of the Soviet Union in 1924 triggered the invitation to participate in the exhibit. For Soviet coverage of the Paris exhibit: Tudendkhol'd, "Mezhdunarodnaia vystavka v Parizhe v 1925 g. i my," Izvestiia, 7 September 1924, 5;
50. For references to the extensive coverage of Palekh in the Soviet press, see the very useful bibliography compiled in honor of Palekh's 50th year of Sovietization in late 1974: Z. N. Korchagina, Iskusstvo sovetskogo Palekha: Bibliograficheskii ukazatel' literatury (Ivanovo: Ivanovskaia oblastnaia nauchnaia biblioteka, 1976).
51. Bakushinskii, "Palekhskie mastera," Krasnaia niva, no. 4 (1926), 10-11;
52. Nikolai Dmitrievich Bartram, "Novoe v kustarnom dele," Krasnaia niva, no. 12 (1925), 285.
53. Tugendkhol'd, "Stil' 1925 goda (mezhdunarodnaia vystavka v Parizhe)," Pechat' i revoliutsiia, no. 7 (1925), 54, 66;
54. idem, "Kizucheniiu iskusstva narodnostei SSSR," Izvestiia, 1 July 1926, 5.
55. Sbornik trudov NIIKhP. Vypusk 5. 1972 (Moscow: Nauchno-issledovatel'skii institut khudozhestvennoi promyshlennosti, 1972), 59-60.
56. Vikhrev, "Iz roda v rod," Rabochii krai, 25 December 1926, 3.
57. Lunacharskii, "Itogi vystavki gosudarstvennykh zakazov k desiatiletiiu oktiabria," Izvestiia, 16 February 1928,
58. reprinted in idem, Ob iskusstve, 226.
59. "Vystavka Gostorga," Nizhegorodskaia iarmarka, 5 September 1928, 3.
60. Interview with Nikolai Ivanovich Golikov (b. 1924) in Palekh, 4 May 2000.
61. "Progulka po vystavke SSSR," Russkii golos, 9 February 1928, 2;
62. Unnumbered pages in Soviet Russian Art and Handicraft Exposition: Grand Central Palace, New York, February 1929 (New York: Amtorg, 1929).
63. Robert Littell, The New Republic, 20 February 1929, 18-19.
64. Iakov Stanislavovich Ganetskii, "Palekhskie khudozhniki," Izvestiia, 20 May 1928, 5.
65. V. Denisov, "Palekhovskie mastera i sovremennost'," Sovetskoe iskusstvo, no. 4 (1927), 40, 44-45.
66. V. Koval'skii, "Proletarskuiu tematiku v kustarno-khudozhestvennye promysli," Eksport kustarnokhudozhestvennykh izdelii i kovrov, no. 1 (January 1932), 3.
67. For more inconclusive debates on Palekh in the 1930s, see A. Vinner, "Preobrazovanie Palekhskikh masterskikh," Literatura i iskusstvo, nos. 7-8 (1931), 93-101;
68. A. Zorich, "Palekh," Prozhektor, 15 March 1932, 9-11;
69. D. Oreshkin, "Palekh v bor'be za Stil'," Narodnoe tvorchestvo, no. 3 (1938), 9-13;
70. See, for example, Victoria Bonnell, Iconography of Power: Soviet Political Posters under Lenin and Stalin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 6, 11-12.
71. Sh. Niurenberg, "Pushkin i Paleshane," Pravda, 14 October 1936, 3.
72. Régine Robin notes that although officials were unable to define the exact nature of socialist realism in the 1930s, they broadly agreed that socialist art, paradoxically, should be both realistic and romantic. Robin, Socialist Realism: An Impossible Aesthetic, trans. Catherine Porter (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), 14.
73. John Bowlt notes that late imperial interest in the primitive and the reaction against positivism and realism continued through the 1930s. Bowlt also sees the Soviet tension between romanticism and realism as continuing a pre-revolutionary dynamic in Russian culture. John Bowlt, Russian Art 1875-1975: A Collection of Essays (New York: MSS Information Corp., 1976), 161, 173.
74. For a discussion of the complex roots and multiple realistic and romantic manifestations of socialist realism, see Thomas Lahusen and Evgeny Dobrenko, eds., Socialist Realism Without Shores (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997),
75. and the earlier special issue of the same title edited by Lahusen and Dobrenko, South Atlantic Quarterly 94: 3 (Summer 1995).
76. See, for example, Katerina Clark, "The City Versus the Countryside in Soviet Peasant Literature of the Twenties: A Duel of Utopias," 175-90, in Bolshevik Culture: Experiment and Order in the Russian Revolution, ed. Abbot Gleason, Peter Kenez, and Richard Stites (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985), 175-90.
77. J. L. Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (London: Seeker and Warburg, 1955), 244, 6-7;
78. Martin Malia, Russia Under Western Eyes: From the Bronze Horseman to the Lenin Mausoleum (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), 257, 260, 281, 285-86, 314, 329, 342.