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The Icons of “The Red Banker” essay 53 The Icons of “the Red Banker” Olof Aschberg and the transactions of social capital by Carl Marklund ne of the more important collections of icons outside Banken [The New Bank], which was intended to become a work- of Russia is to be found in Nationalmuseum in Stock- ers’ bank with the aim of providing capital for workers’ housing. holm. It totals 323 icons, the mainstay of which, 245 At the time, Stockholm was characterized by sub-standard, yet icons, were donated in 1933. This first dona- expensive, housing with adverse effects on the health and tion was followed by another of 32 icons in 1952, both child care of the working class. Recognizing the potential of by the same donor. Most of the icons are Russian, but workers’ power through their market share and by using the collection also contains excellent examples of the capitalist system for social improvement, Aschberg Byzantine and Greek icon painting.λ established close contacts with both left and right wing The primary donor of this collection was Swed- social democrats — including the Swedish Social ish banker, businessman, and patron of the arts Democratic Party’s leader Hjalmar Branting Olof Aschberg (1877—1960). Aschberg’s lifelong and his wife, Anna, as well as Stockholm’s interest in Russian religious art be- radical burgomeister Carl Lindhagen. gan when he was perusing the flea Gradually, Aschberg became market at Moscow’s Smolens- deeply involved in the labor kaya Rynok while employed movement. In 1917, for ex- as the director of one of the ample, Aschberg collabo- first Soviet commercial rated with several groups banks, Ruskombank, in of social democrats and 1922—1924. left socialists in various at- Aschberg’s road to tempts at launching a peace Moscow can be traced conference to be held in in two different strands Stockholm during that year.μ in his vita — first, his early engagement with THESE ACTIVITIES earned Asch- the labor movement, and berg the sobriquet “the red second his experience banker” and provided him with financial transactions with a first-rate opportunity during the First World War. to get to know some of the In 1912, Aschberg started Nya leading figures of European as well as Russian socialism. By the early 1920s, Aschberg Fig. 1. Olof Aschberg depicted had established a banking by his friend, Albert Engström, in network between Moscow, Moscow in 1923. Stockholm, and Berlin, Baltic Worlds 2018, vol. XI:1 Special section: Against the Scatter of the World 54 essay eventually relocating to Paris in the late 1920s. After the Nazi fering from widespread famine, but also to equip the Red Army takeover in Germany, the French capital replaced Berlin as the fighting the White Russians as well as numerous liminal coun- hub of “international solidarity” work of the international labor tries. Confiscated Tsarist gold as well as both religious and secu- movement. Aschberg soon engaged himself in several anti- lar art, not the least icons of the Russian Orthodox Church, were fascist and anti-racist networks operating out of Paris.ν Besides just some of the assets the Bolsheviks would rely upon in these his financial and solidarity work, Aschberg also found time for attempts. Weimar Germany soon became the central site for the cultivating his cultural interests, supporting avant-garde arts, auctioning of Russian antiquities. This was primarily because and often entertaining Swedish as well as international artists in Weimar Germany’s recognition of the Bolsheviks/Soviets as the his Paris home. legitimate rulers of Russia — de facto in the Brest-Litovsk treaty When Paris was occupied by the Germans in 1940, Aschberg (1918) and de jure in the Rapallo Treaty (1922) — would make it was arrested. His property, including all of his artworks, was difficult for the White Russian émigré community to protest the confiscated by the Vichy government, and Aschberg himself sale of seized assets. Several scholars have described the world- was interned in southern France. wide tour of icons that preceded Eventually, Aschberg managed to “ASCHBERG WAS large-scale sales of Russian-origin move via Lisbon to New York, where arts, furniture, prints, etcetera, in he engaged in anti-fascist publicity AWESTRUCK WHEN HE particular in Germany and later work before he fell ill. At this point, SAW ICONS FOR SALE FOR the US, from the early 1920s to the he retreated to Florida where he be- early 1930s.ρ These transfers were gan penning his first autobiography THE FIRST TIME, NOTING not merely intended to generate during his convalescence.ξ THEIR DUAL ARTISTIC monetary gain, however. They were As the Second World War came to AND SPIRITURAL VALUE. also instrumental in early Soviet an end, Aschberg returned to Swe- cultural diplomacy. We know of the den. In 1946, not forsaking his sec- HE DESCRIBES HOW HE role of Armand and Victor Ham- ond adopted homeland, Aschberg BEGAN ACQUIRING THEM mer in boosting the market value acquired a new estate in France. of icons as the cultural heritage of a Eventually, Aschberg donated this PRIVATELY, ADORNING fallen empire and the genius of Igor property to the Swedish labor move- HIS MOSCOW FLAT Grabar in improving the cultural ment in the early 1950s. Throughout respectability of the Soviet Union in his life, he was an outspoken propo- WITH ICONS.” saving it and making it available to nent of closer ties between Sweden Western markets.ς and other countries, primarily France and Russia/Soviet Union, Aschberg does not appear to have been engaged in the selling engaging in what could be called “citizen cultural diplomacy.” of Russian artworks and icons on Western art markets, even if he was based in Berlin and Paris at the time of these sales. Ac- TODAY, THE SIGNIFICANCE of Aschberg’s rich biography is difficult cording to Ulf Abel, who has researched Aschberg’s donations to assess. In fact, his 1933 and 1952 donations of icons to Nation- to Nationalmuseum, no relevant documents remain. What we almuseum are what Aschberg is mostly known for today, at least know, we know mostly from Aschberg’s own accounts.σ There, in Sweden. Even though Aschberg was a very well known person Aschberg does not mention Grabar, Glavmuzei, or Gokhran. in his own lifetime, also internationally, his activities are not well Instead, he describes the plundering of Russian Orthodox understood. churches by the Bolsheviks as resulting in icons flooding the flea There appear to be two main reasons for this. First, Aschberg markets, where he himself discovered them in the Smolenskaya wrote no less than four autobiographical works or memoirs, Rynok. Another reason for the icons to enter the market, Asch- which provide exciting insights into his rich, variegated life, his berg found, was that abject poverty led many private Russians to business activities, his cultural interests, and his myriad of social sell whatever artworks and valuables they might have in order to contacts.ο While these memoirs confirm his role as a progres- survive. Aschberg was awestruck when he saw icons for sale for sively oriented businessman, with far-ranging visions with re- the first time, noting their dual artistic and spiritural value. He gard to both enterprise and diplomacy, they are often imprecise describes how he began acquiring them privately, adorning his regarding dates and context, making the information therein Moscow flat with icons.λκ difficult to verify. Partly due to this vagueness, Aschberg has, secondly, become a household name in some of the literature on IN HIS OWN ACCOUNT, Aschberg does not appear to have had much the nebuluous contacts between Germany, Western finance, and of a collector’s interest at all before his Moscow stay, perhaps the Bolsheviks/Soviets in the tumultuous final stages of the First at least in part due to his demanding work and mobile lifestyle. World War and the first phase of the Russian Civil War.π However, in another episode already in 1907, Aschberg describes The Bolsheviks and later the Soviets were eager to acquire how he and his friend Martin Aronowitsch — who would later be- hard currency as well as technology not only for rebuilding the come the owner of the main Swedish auction house Bukowskis infrastructure and industry of war-torn Russia, which was suf- (until 1974) — travelled on a gambling tour to Ostende and Brus- essay 55 sels, where they bought antiquities in such amounts that they had to hire a whole railway wagon to transport their acquisitions back to Stockholm.λλ While Aschberg conducted his bank business in a triangle between Berlin, Moscow, and Stockholm in the early 1920s, he also realized the need to establish the respectability of the Soviet regime to Swedish business interests as well as his own reputa- tion as an international businessman. Among Aschberg’s many Stockholm friends was Albert Engström, a highly popular and esteemed Swedish artist and author of conservative inclination. Since 1922 a member of the Swedish Academy, Engström howev- er suffered from personal problems with finances and substance abuse. His books were not selling very well any longer, and his publisher, Bonniers, refused him an advance. At this point, Aschberg claims that he came up with the idea that Engström could follow him to Moscow in 1923. As the turmoil in Russia had prevented ordinary travel and contacts, it could be assumed that Engström’s impressions of the Soviet capital in images as well as words would be attractive on the Swedish book market. In Moscow, Engström received unprecedented access to the most prominent Bolsheviks, except for Lenin, who was ill at the Fig. 2. The March 1930 issue of the Paris émigré news- time, drawing the portraits of the world-famous revolutionaries, paper Vozrozhdenie commented upon the sales of Rus- the leaders of the world’s first workers’ state.
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