Art and Literature Scientific and Analytical Journal Texts 1.2014

Bruxelles, 2014 EDITORIAL BOARD

Chief editor Burganova M. A. Pletneva A. A. () — Candidate of Sciences, research associate of Russian Bowlt John Ellis (USA) — Doctor of Language Institute of the Russian Academy Science, Professor of Slavic Languages of Sciences; and Literatures in University of Southern Pociechina Helena (Poland) — Doctor California; of Science; Profesor of the University of Burganov A. N. (Russia) — Doctor of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn; Science, Professor of Stroganoff Pruzhinin B. I. (Russia) — Doctor of State Art Industrial University, Full-member Sciences, Professor, editor-in-chief of of Russia Academy of Arts, National Artist of Problems of Philosophy; Russia, member of the Dissertation Council Ryzhinsky A. S. (Russia) — Candidate of of Stroganoff Moscow State Art Industrial Sciences, Senior lecturer of Gnesins Russian University; Academy of Music; Burganova M. A. (Russia) — Doctor of Sahno I. M. (Russia) — Doctor of Sciences, Science, Professor of Stroganoff Moscow Professor of Peoples’ Friendship University State Art Industrial University, Full-member of Russia; of Russia Academy of Arts, Honored Artist of Sano Koji (Japan) Professor of Russia, member of the Dissertation Council Toho Gakuyen University of Music of Stroganoff Moscow State Art Industrial (Japan) — Professor of Toho Gakuyen University, editor-in-chief; University of Music; Glanc Tomáš (Germany) — Doctor of Shvidkovsky Dmitry O. (Russia) — Vice- Science of The Research Institute of East President of Russian Academy of Arts and European University of Bremen (Germany), its secretary for History of Arts, and Full and assistant professor of The Charles member; Rector of Moscow Institute of University (Czech Republic); Architecture, Doctor of Science, Professor, Kazarian Armen (Russia) — Architectural Full member of Russian Academy of historian, Doctor of Fine Arts in The State Architecture and Construction Sciences, Full Institute of Art History, Advisor in Academy member of the British Academy; of Architecture and Construction Sciences; Tanehisa Otabe (Japan) — Doctor of Sience, Kravetsky A. G. (Russia) — Candidate of Professor, Head of Department of Aesthetics Sciences, research associate of Russian at Tokyo; Language Institute of the Russian Academy Tolstoy Andrey V. (Russia) — Doctor of of Sciences; Sciences, professor in the History of Art at the Lavrentyev Alexander N. (Russia) — Moscow State Institute of Architecture, a Full- Doctor of Arts, Professor of Stroganoff member of the Russian Academy of Fine Arts Moscow State Art Industrial University and and President of the Russian National section Moscow State University of Printing Arts; of International Association of Art Critics Misler Nicoletta (Italy) Professor of Modern (AICA) affiliated with UNESCO; East European Art at the Istituto Universitario Tsivian Yuri (USA) — Doctor of Science, Orientale, NaplesPavlova I. B. — Candidate Professor, University of Chicago, of Sciences, Senior Researcher of Institute of Departments: Cinema and Media Studies, Art World Literature of the Russian Academy of History, Slavic Languages and Literatures. Sciences; Editor Smolenkova J. (Russia)

ISSN 2294-8902 © TEXTS, 2014 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Alexander C. Yakimovich Understanding Art. The Twentieth Century 5

Maria A. Burganova Pierre Cardin and Alexander Burganov: an Artistic Dialogue 26

Nikolay K. Solovyev Religious Interiors of Moscow State Period (late 14th – 17th centuries) 32

Varvara V. Kashirina The History of St. Theophan the Recluse’s Library 55

Starovoytova Y. Anastasia A painting of Georg Opitz 61

Victor G. Vlasov Italianisms as Artistic Tropes in Architecture of Saint Petersburg 67

Kseniya I. Novokhatko Literature Memorial Museums and Exhibitions in Russia in 1920s-1989: exhibition design concepts 79

Svetlana I. Khvatova Premiere of the First Adyghe Opera: Desire and Opportunities 92

Tatiana V. Valentey The Importance of being Nice and Precise in Business Communication 99

Alexander C. Yakimovich. Understanding Art. The Twentieth Century

Alexander C. Yakimovich Full Member of the Russian Academy of Arts Doctor of Arts Research Institute of the Theory and History of Fine Arts of The Russian Academy of Arts [email protected] Russia, Moscow UNDERSTANDING ART. THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Summary: Art criticism seems to have mixed up the message and the language in artworks. Studies of art history concentrated on means (languages) like style and iconography, in full conviction that this is the message. As a matter of fact, Modern art deals with “being human in Modernity”. It means being dynamic, uneasy, asking questions and venturing experiments. Modernity elaborated the content of “refusing to participate”. Ideas and scenes by Shakespeare, Goethe, Goya, Cézanne and Blok may illustrate the specific negativism towards sociopolitical realities. In the twentieth century Modern art (entering the phase of Avant-Garde) channeled its contents across three main mechanisms. One can describe artistic message as “anthropologically friendly”, “anthropologically aggressive” and “anthropologically neutral”. Art for people’s sake exists within Modernism since the pioneer paintings by Matisse. Art as challenge and punishment came in with young (Cubist) Picasso and early Malevich. Art as message not for people arised with Duchamp and Schwitters to be followed by experiments on several lines. Concept art and land-art supposedly prolonged the course of “anthropological neutrality”. The proposed anthropological typology makes a move towards meanings and contents in art which have been neglected until now by art criticism. Keywords: artistic innovation, refraining from taking part, anthropological friendliness in art, anthropological aggressiveness in art.

Students know well enough that art studies in Modernity have their starting point in works by Hippolyte Taine and Jakob Burckhardt.1

— 5 — Alexander C. Yakimovich. Understanding Art.The Twentieth Century

In the middle of the 19th century the two laid down a project of a new discipline — art history — with its wide scale of approaches and methods. Since then we have a new branch of knowledge, called in Germany “Kunstwissenschaft”, a branch essentially different from the age-old philosophical approach to problems and mysteries of art practiced by Plato, Aristotle, Lessing, Hegel, and Heidegger. The founding fathers of studies in art history proposed the fundamental principle of the anthropological approach to art history. But later on, the course had been changed substantially. Only a part of initial proposals had been realized by the second and third wave of students. One line of studies came to maturity thanks to the Vienna school (A. Riegl and others) and Heinrich Wölfflin with his “formal” teaching. Another direction had been taken by Warburg school of Iconology and, personally, by E. Panofsky and E. Gombrich. The particularization and atomization of art studies was and still is an accomplished fact. The masters of style analysis and the Warburgian virtuosi of finding hidden meanings in art have occupied almost the whole space of studies. This is not the place to elaborate on ways and turns of our knowledge in art history. What is important to say now is that only a certain part of our potential has been developed. Other ways and methods have been left untouched. What has been left underdeveloped until now is the complex of anthropological perspectives of interpretation. Shouldn’t we at last bring them to the light? Initiators of historical art studies have been clearly predisposed to find and extract anthropological meanings in artworks. Both the French thinker and the Swiss professor of history have formulated a simple and important idea. Art in Modernity (since its beginnings in Renaissance) is first of all a message about human things. The analysis of style and iconography has to be a helpful assistance while posing our central question: how do we deal with res humana in art? It might appear to us that we know these obvious truths. Isn’t humanitarian knowledge as such dedicated just to that? Letting aside big ideas in humanities, let us admit that art studies, as they are now, seem to mockingly ignore fundamental principles of exploring human things.

— 6 — Alexander C. Yakimovich. Understanding Art.The Twentieth Century

In fact, students of art history seem to have confused the means and objects of their knowledge. The object of it is nothing else but being human in Modernity. Artists deal with this object by means that he or she is in command of: that is, style or iconography or metaphoric mechanisms. Art students should describe by what way artists deal with this object. But students don’t do only what they should do. They plunge into studying means and languages of art avoiding anthropological messages and meanings in art. They silently suppose that the means of art are its meanings. The medium is the message — this dubious thesis seems to have been adopted by students of art history. The central object of art in Modernity is the human being, their life, psyche, social mechanisms, values, contradictions and historical or existential dead ends in the environment of Modernity. In fact, all these things find their embodiment in forms of Baroque, Classicism, or Romanticism. Efforts are made to get rid of styles as such. Specifically Modernist art languages come to life with Impressionism and Avant- Garde. All of this is true but just as true is the fact that means (languages) of art serve to posing fundamental anthropological tasks. Art historians quite successfully engage into means and languages of art, their change and transformations, but fundamental anthropological tasks seem to be forgotten. The core problem of Modernity in art is not an imaginary typical “human being” but the human being of Modern period, with a specific psychological organization (or psycho-type). He or she displays a longing for freedom, and a gift for courage, rebellion, experimenting, dynamism. This kind of human is both the author of new artworks and the hero of Modern art. This human race and its special conduct and nature has been described by, among others, G. W. Hegel. His book, Introduction to the Philosophy of History (finished in 1830), includes passages on the new humans of the New Times, or Neuzeit.2 Hegel pointed to dynamism, inquietude and eternal discontent. The rushing history and incessant change is one side of Modernity, as Hegel saw it. The other side is the “unhappy mind” (“unglückliches Bewusstsein”), never able to reach a stable state.

— 7 — Alexander C. Yakimovich. Understanding Art.The Twentieth Century

The main preoccupation of the New Time is just the state of constant unrest of a psyche which cannot find peace in any a priori postulates. He or she does not believe in the “crowned truths” (as Leonardo da Vinci put it in his notebooks). Art and literature of the Modern type are dedicated to this new race of humans. The instruments and means for doing this are stylistic, symbolic, metaphoric, and iconographic. Means of artistic creation keep fulfilling the underlying anthropological task. For all these reasons my own way of interpreting artworks and artistic messages is basically anthropological. Of course this does not exclude other methods. If studies in style history and iconology happen to be helpful in dealing with anthropological questions, the better for all of us. My anthropological methods are concentrated on the history of art during the period of the 16th to 20th centuries. This is to say from the first signs of the coming New Age to the critical period of history when the existence of human race has been put under question, and both the natural surroundings and inner nature of humans have been gravely threatened. Historians know that there exists a vast field of knowledge concerning the pre-Modern times. What message brings us the sacral artworks of Antiquity and the Middle Ages? For better or worse, Antiquity and the Middle Ages are none of my business. Sometimes, very cautiously, one has to cope with them both, too, if one has to describe Modern art. But I cannot pretend to have a sufficient degree of expertise in these remote areas. By all my admiration to them I suspect big difficulties in getting reliable instruments for working in this field. What is left is to trust specially trained people who know better about Antique and Medieval art. Nowadays we have to rely upon so-called experts if we trust our lives to airplanes, and our money to banks. Sometimes we regret it very much. Expertise in art history is hardly more trustworthy than that.3 The philosophers of Modernity are helping us a lot in describing the new dynamic psycho-type (the uneasy human who is both the subject and object of artistic activity). The circle of Existentialist thought generated the idea of a distrustful anthropology, or anthropology of distrust.4 In this view the main feature of creative and thinking of human beings is to thoroughly examine and criticize things, and never believe in any

— 8 — Alexander C. Yakimovich. Understanding Art.The Twentieth Century postulates proclaimed as eternally true. Therefore cognition itself is being considered to be the product of doubt and critique. Obviously this idea has been anticipated by Descartes’ principle of critical cognition as well as by Kant’s idiom Sapere aude (Dare to know).5 This type of thinking announced a basic change in fundamental structures of our cognition (both rational and artistic). Pre-Modern times understood cognition (or understanding things) as a revelation that is meeting eternally valid ideas or truths. Modernity completely changed the scene and plot. Cognition in Modernity is the result of distrust, critique and permanent revision of our knowledge. We see before us the new creative human being — the Modernist and dynamic one. This character (the author of Modern art) has to give his or her answer to the permanently returning situation of an anthropological crisis. There were three situations of this kind in Modernity. I mean the serious historical crisis, or the state of things excluding any movement to any direction. The old direction is not viable, the new one cannot be taken yet. Thus, a big bang and violent overturn is needed in order to find some new way, and avoid stagnation. The first crisis happened in the time span between the beginning of confessional conflicts in Europe and collapse of Renaissance culture, on the start, and the final stage of Thirty-Year war. It makes more than a hundred years from 1520-s to the middle of 17th century. The most revealing reaction of artistic mind to the first anthropological crisis of Modernity surfaced in Shakespeare’s idiom “A plague o’ both your houses”. This statement (from the tragedy “Romeo and Juliet”) has a philosophical sense beyond the historical anecdote on the hereditary enmity of two families in an Italian city which (enmity) led up to very sad events. Thus, Shakespeare’s principle says that values and truths given by historical circumstances cannot convince the new artist. The idea of impossibility or questionability of taking positions can be traced in master’s texts more than once (e. g. in King Lear). History is tragedy. This is to say, in particular, that “neither is good”. Studying art and thinking by Breughel and Velazquez, Montaigne, Cervantes, Shakespeare one must see that the problem of

— 9 — Alexander C. Yakimovich. Understanding Art.The Twentieth Century

anthropological crisis was really essential to them. They dared to know very uncomfortable things.6 The second anthropological crisis of Modernity started with preparation and outbreak of the French revolution of the late 18th century (with its repercussions in following European revolts). As a response to this situation, Alexander Pushkin coined his idiom “On any glint of bliss there glower / Enlightenment or tyranny” (To the Sea, 1818). Thereby, in his early Byron lyrics Pushkin took up the Shakespearian idea of “two houses” — both of them nothing but “plague”. Pushkin repeatedly described the two historical forces (conservative inaction and revolutionary drive) as parts of the same tragedy. No one is right and no one good. This way of seeing things determined several important aspects in Pushkin’s life and art. Among other things he developed a kind of dialectical historical thinking in his prosaic and dramatic texts.7 The twentieth century housed the third anthropological crisis of Modernity, and it was the most severe one. Primarily, this was the period of extremely painful trial both for people in the East and in the West. The tensions it gave were irresistible, and blows were smashing. Wars and revolutions, terror strategies, mass repressions had annihilated lives and ruined destinies the way no another epoch ever did. The last stage of Modernity has invented mechanisms of controlling minds insurmountable by their effectiveness. Never experienced perspectives involved in personal liberation are, by a paradoxical logic of time, a pitiless subjugation. Can a human psyche or, to put it in an old- fashioned way, natura humana resist such conditions? This is not a rhetoric question. Art is a response not to quantitative disasters, not to historical calamities as such or to extreme bloodsheds. Art somehow tests the anthropological labyrinth as it is. Namely artists of Modernity with their uneasy, restless minds and visions (Kant’s daring mind or Hegel’s unhappy mind) contact the reality and see its polarity and complexity — and both poles of this world do not satisfy the new emancipated creativity. The one side or the other side — both are no good. Two artists incepted themes and problems of Modern art on the threshold of the 19th century. Their names are Goethe and Goya.

— 10 — Alexander C. Yakimovich. Understanding Art.The Twentieth Century

The tragedy “Faust” can be interpreted as a story of a great test of human values in history, mythology and social mechanisms. This test, or a kind of absolute examination, is being fulfilled by two specially accredited figures — the wise and learned human, and his dark shadow — a powerful demon. The project itself of this total audit appears as a common business of two participants: Heaven is the name of one, Hell is the other. In the Prologue nobody but God Father himself sanctions the daring project with participation of two commissioners — Faust and Mephistopheles. Goethe’s tragedy sets out to test three levels of being: the reliability of the democratic masses (the “good simple” man and woman); the system of government power; and the presumably eternal values of culture and the arts. Examination shows that good simple people (so appealing for Goethe) are doomed to fail. The State power deploys its nothingness and rottenness in Court and Palace scenes. Values of culture and artistic creativity (very dear to Goethe) melt into thin air with the phantom of Helen the Beautiful. So, the presumable pillars of human existence (national, social, political and cultural ones) aren’t reliable enough. Only the permanent uneasiness of a human and his/her struggle for knowledge and future can guarantee with some safety what we call being human. “He only earns his freedom and his life / Who take them each day by storm.” 8 Therefore the single firm basis of being and knowledge is a lack of belief in firm basic structures.This is no sophistic play with paradoxical language but an important principle of the new creative activity. We know that this principle has been developed by new dangerous minds, like Nietzsche, Bataille, or Deleuze. In the world of painting there was Goya. His picture from 1814 “The third of May (Execution of the defenders of Madrid)” is dedicated to the examination of reality, in this case the political one. Two powers stand against each other, revolutionary fighters and defenders of State. Both sides are equally terrible, and worth each other. Remember Shakespeare and Pushkin. Goya is more radical than these two; he is permeated by more intensive desperation and wrath. Goya represents the new art of

— 11 — Alexander C. Yakimovich. Understanding Art.The Twentieth Century

new human being — the daring creative mind who refuses to accept any version of historically given reality. Artists individually sometimes may have accepted some social or political functions. An artist of national and international fame may be a member of a Court service, as Goya was. An important literary figure may rise (or fall) to an official position of a minister in a government of a tiny German principality, as Goethe did. Positions and decorations do not make their art neither better nor worse. The nineteenth century art and literature paid a big tribute to the great anthropological paradox of Modernity. Human being who has no choice and stays caught in a dead end of history and life — this is in fact what works by Gogol and Tolstoy, Cézanne and Baudelaire, Chekhov and Degas are about. Themes and problems of the anthropological crisis take on different forms and masks; they appear with varying degrees of intensity. And, not least, in varying national colors and shades. Students of art and literature have to assess the 19th century from this point of view. This is a future perspective — at the present moment this way of understanding is almost fully neglected and ignored. What kind of response to the challenge of historical time can we observe in the 19th century? Nikolai Gogol resorted to the means of a specific “cosmic laughter”. Everybody sees at once the presence of satirical mockery in his texts permeated with comic intentions. But outbursts of laughter accompany in Gogol’s texts not only “low passions” and moral defects. Great hopes and noble dreams get their portion of laughter, too. Why? Both poles aren’t good enough? One more name. Paul Cézanne brought to light his desperation and sarcasm in his early paintings. In other words, Cézanne has begun his artistic biography with a sort of ethically tainted messianism. He was ready to take on the role of a prophet who prevents humans of dangers hidden inside people themselves. Later, in his mature works, he renounced to these meanings and arrived at architectural structures inherent in nature. This special cult of geological and biological formations (from an apple to a mountain) indicates a highly important phenomenon of artistic independence. Independence from what?

— 12 — Alexander C. Yakimovich. Understanding Art.The Twentieth Century

Presumably the experience of the war the French had against Prussia, and the Communist revolt in Paris in 1871 had brought Cézanne to a typically Modern world vision. “The plague o’ both your houses” is the basic idiom for this vision. More than that: the pest on every one of your houses. People create and construct their societies, thrones, parliaments, revolutions, police forces, moral values, aesthetic norms, philosophical statements, and all the rest. People invent and build up their symbolic reality, and on every step and every turn their work is questionable. No reason to rely on this building. The Russian painter Ilya Repin was born to the same generation of the second half of the 19th century. He used a rather conventional artistic language but what concerns us now are meanings and messages in his works. The Russian master was endowed by a strong ideological temperament and burned with political passions and social pathos. He sided with the movement of Russian “Narodniki”, or friends of the folk. But his paintings of 1870-s and 1880-s betray a kind of double meaning. Repin sincerely yearned for political and ideological meanings in art. But his vital instinct and his organic joy of living brought him to another dimension. He could not stop enjoying the splendor of life. Radiating light. The warm human body. Elements of life. Big pictures and portraits by Repin have the ideological program installed in them. But the matter of paint brought to the canvas seems to overcome the ideology. Painting as a process displaces the artists’ ideological concept. Repin’s picture “Unexpected Visitor” (1888) displays an episode of family history. A gaunt and sick man is coming back home after a term in Siberian exile (a punishment more hard and devouring than jail). This plot has been understood in the epoch of terrorism and police repressions as a story of the tragic collision between Revolution and State power. Educated classes in Russia discussed the problem of violence which had been set free to bring people more freedom and rights but caused guilt and pain. Heroes or monsters, liberators or killers — this was the question concerning the radical anti-government opposition. Repin’s work in fact depicts another story: coming back

— 13 — Alexander C. Yakimovich. Understanding Art.The Twentieth Century

home, which is the sacred space of life, refuge for man who has been nearly lost. Space, light, and material substance of this family home had outdone the ideological bias of the artist himself. History, society, education and milieu impose on us the Big Choice: Power or Mutiny, State or Revolution.9 The artistic answer to this choice is No to All Given Options. Art is about life, vital forces, principles of Nature and ontology. Art development of Modernity involved such sort of challenge. History imposes a set of options. Free art does not embrace any of them. Artistic work of a more conformist plight developed along different paths of course. Not everybody in the art world is a free artist. Fashionable artistry did and does produce its commercial seductions. Official artists comply with the needs of Church and State power, or propagate an ideology. Artists of Modernity faced the impossibility of the given choice. Imagine the life and work of Daumier, Flaubert, Edouard Manet; or the Russian scene with Gogol, Dostoyevsky, Repin, Valentin Serov. Looking to one direction, artists can see conservative forces and police power like Bonapartism in France and its Second Empire, of the reactionary regime of Emperor Nikolay Pavlovich in Russia. The alternative side is peopled by liberals, democrats, anarchists, nihilists, underground terrorists, and later on — Communist conspirators and Bolshevik activists. This is the offer of History. Please choose one of the two — the noose of government power or the axe of revolt. Art says NO to both parts of this offer. As mentioned before, biographical moments and artistic results go along different paths. As individuals belonging to classes, groups and nations of definite historical times, artists usually make their choice. They stuck to this or that reference group, political formation, ideological line. Students know quite well these inclinations of artists (Gogol, Dostoyevsky, Daumier, Pissarro, Courbet, Mayakovsky A. O.) But artistic creation as such in Modernity rebukes attachments and options. Free art (free from conformity) exists outside historical options. The twentieth century witnessed crisis number three. It covered almost all of the century, it had many masks and disguises. The time

— 14 — Alexander C. Yakimovich. Understanding Art.The Twentieth Century

span of 1900–1999 could prove totally irreconcilable with any art at all. Art found itself at a brink of survival. The simple enumeration of events themselves is eloquent, enough to mention such things as Communist revolution in Russia (and its later repercussions in Europe, China, Latin America). The Soviet system turned out to be a totalitarian power pretending to an overall control of mind, conscience, and creativity. The Soviet experiment could not come to real success. But the effort has been impressive enough — so as to give us a shiver of fear and disgust. The twentieth century turned out to be inconceivable. Its historical processes look unbelievable. How could we believe in real possibility of German National-Socialism and its results? The Second World War evolved across two stages. After the prelude of 1939–40, when Germany and formed a cynical partnership, the central collision came. Two dragons fought each other — the Stalin Empire on the one side and the Nazi Empire, on the other. Who was the winner? The Soviet system broke down in 1991. It was an indirect effect of the Great Victory in 1945, wasn’t it? If it was we have here something more than an ironical smile of History. We have a sardonic grimace. Victory which may have stipulated the knockout for the winner — this is a lecture in history which the human brain does not accept today. People East and West refuse to think over or to discuss this “impossible” item. If a student of history adheres to the common sense and logic he or she will have difficulties. Modernity brought to life enlightened absolute rulers and wild democracies (proclaiming the path to a better future but reviving the prehistoric past). First economic miracles occur in Modern Europe and America, as well as revolutionary leaders transforming to something like tribal chiefs and head hunters. Karl Jaspers knowingly has described the transformations of this kind as “turbulencies”. He meant by that the fact of lost differences. Right and left, conservative and progressive lines form new sorts of alloys.10 Religious Communists in Russia belong to the zone of turbulence as tightly as Left Catholics in the West, or protagonists of the Chinese “Maoist Capitalism”. From 1910 to 1921 Alexander Blok had been writing preparatory sketches for a huge and enigmatic poem called “Retribution”. It depicts a family history on the background of national and European history

— 15 — Alexander C. Yakimovich. Understanding Art.The Twentieth Century

around 1900. The family house lives through the new Time of Trouble. Firstly, history knocks at the door as a revolutionary “Nihilist” with bad manners and alcohol addiction. Secondly, equally sarcastically appears the portrait of a State official preoccupied with the social unrest he is obliged but unable to deal with.11 Blok followed the line of Pushkin’s philosophical poetry. As mentioned above, Pushkin formulated his stance with words On any glint of bliss there glower / Enlightenment or tyranny (To the Sea, 1818). In fact Blok depicted the same two poles of historical choice: revolution and State power. And both sides are derisory and repulsive enough not to choose between them. As Shakespeare put it: “The plague o’ both your houses”. Art and artists have to go another way beyond the two houses stained by infection and decay. Archaic systems of ethics hardly comply with new anthropological meanings in art and literature. In real life of artists in Russia we can recognize this pre-Modern story. Mayakovski made an effort to make his choice and passionately take the side of and Soviet power. This step ended up with fiasco and suicide in 1930. His final lines were And so they say — “The incident dissolved” The love boat smashed up On the dreary routine. I’m through with life And [we] should absolve From mutual hurts, afflictions and spleen. This statement was probably addressed both to his woman and his country. Maxim Gorki tried to postpone his choice as long as possible. He was uncertain about Soviet Russia until late 1920-s. Finally he left his Mediterranean paradise for the Socialist motherland, and engaged in ideological campaign by pleading for the repressive hell of GULAG.12 He also gave his name and fame to support the dubious theory and practice of “Socialist Realism”. Simultaneously he produced his last novel “Life of Klim Samgin”. This voluminous narrative described at

— 16 — Alexander C. Yakimovich. Understanding Art.The Twentieth Century

length the process of the fatal illness of Russia, and factors and effects of its disintegration and fall. Gorky’s rendering of the life of a Russian intellectual belongs to the so-called novels of education. The young Samgin travels and experiences Russian life. He meets all sorts of people and situations. Revolutionary types and police officers, intelligentsia, artistic bohéme, peasants and workers, State power and religious institutions, sectarian circles, all kinds of exotic figures, philistines, dreamers, criminals, family clans, participants of unbridled sexual experiments; Samgin’s life is anything but monotonous. The endless and seething Russia is an inexhaustible universe. However, man is lost here. Nothing’s left stable and certain. Questions do not get answers. As young man and then as an adult Samgin never knows what is to believe in, to follow suit, what for should he act and live. This perpetual irresolution inherent to him cannot be just an effect of intellectual hesitation of a new Hamlet. Reality itself is such that a thinking man fatally lacks any firm foundation. Something happened to the nation and every man in it. Maybe to humankind altogether. So far, only key literary works of Russia have been of concern. What about literary works of the West? Several years before Gorky died his younger contemporary James Joyce wrote the final parts of his “Ulysses”. This text describes a long and excruciating process of man’s searching for values and ideas. What harbor to choose, what can be certain and true? In fact Joyce tells his life experience. Catholic childhood, friendship with Jesuit fathers and enmity to them, loosing faith and painful emptiness inside, experiments with human relations and moral prescriptions, studying the Irish folklore and parodying it, loyalty to the Imperial British power and sticking to European liberal ideas, and constant irony towards values, flags and symbols of cultures, States and nations… Joyce was never able to find his firm anchor. Thus he somehow reminds us of Gorky’s personage, Klim Samgin plagued by imminent doubts. In Joyce’s book the new Ulysses is travelling through the city. In one day he goes through times, worlds, and levels of being. The problem is that nothing stays with him. His son and his family are problematic.

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Reminiscences and religious insights, knowledge and convictions evaporate. There is nothing to get hold of. It is impossible to find a place to exist and to be certain of something. Ulysses cannot find his native island. In 1920s Soviet Russia acquires the first novel by Mikhail Sholokhov — “Quiet Flows the Don”. This is a cry of despair of Russian fate. The White forces and the Red Communist fighters contest the power in the country. The Civil War destroys what had been the common house before. The one hero, named Grigory, stands for the White side, Stepan takes the side of the . Both of them are hard Kazak men, good family fathers and honest persons. But somehow both are guilty and mistaken. One side does monstrous things, and the rival side is hardly any better. Nobody is right or good. The full point is made in the final pages. Man finds himself in the dead end. No way to either direction. He looks up and sees a black sun in the shining sky. This is the signal that tells that nothing can be done. Communist rulers have praised the book for its presumably ideological depiction of the defeat of Counter-Revolution in Russia. Attentive reading says the defeat is shown symmetrical. Both sides failed. Several years earlier Thomas Mann wrote his novel The Magic Mountain (Der Zauberberg, 1924). It describes the life of a tubercular sanatorium. The majority if its inmates are damned to death and everyone there knows it. In this border situation people make efforts to find out in their last days what is true and what not in their lives. What would be the final meaning and value to rely on? What is certain and true? Faith or atheism? Science or mysticism — or perhaps a combination of the two? What about State and its institutions? Should one defend it or resist it? Love and friendship, family, society, humanity, war and peace — who knows how to cope with all of this? The answer is there is no answer to any basic question. The multitude of options lends itself to deceive us. Fog and maze surround the human being — and this is the final experience on the brink of Nothing, on the slopes of the Magic Mountain. Several books have been cited above. Their authors come from different paths of life and different nations. They vary in views and

— 18 — Alexander C. Yakimovich. Understanding Art.The Twentieth Century

personal outlooks. However, we can see that after the Great War and Russian revolution literature brings forward books about values and truths evaporating from reality. Ways to them have been cut off. There is nothing to rely upon, the way home is lost, and the native island is forlorn. The names and works mentioned here hardly form a systematic panorama of literature. We have to draw a working hypothesis. It means, among other things that we have to avoid extremely radical and “acute” experiments in literature.13 Our working hypothesis reads that Modernity means a radical dissention of artists from values and truths given by their surroundings. Everybody of us meets with a sort of axiological menu. Artistic gesture has to be a gesture of negativity. The difficulty is that artists personally often take positions and have their places in political and cultural dimensions. Thus, Goethe has accepted a State position with corresponding duties and aggravations. He suffered, and carried his cross. Turning to a State official or an ideological pillar is one of the typical life lines of artistic personalities from Velazquez to Maxim Gorky. Through analyzing meanings and messages of Modern art we can see there unmistakable traces of “anthropological dissent”. Thereby two series of questions are arising. Renouncing to choice or impossibility of taking sides grows to a fundamental principle of liberal art in Modernity (surfacing in art but not necessarily in artistic biographies). There exists a widespread theory saying that art of Romanticism and Avant-Garde is destructive, pessimistic and anti-human. Such views appear in conservative minds of Nationalists like Oswald Spengler and Marxists like György Lukács and Mikhail Lifshitz. The outermost version of this view says that Modernist artists turn out to be sort of enemies of humanity. Renouncing to values and truths and refraining from choice an artist inevitably grows to work for this or that Totalitarian project — a Nazi one or Soviet one.14 This theory by Lifshitz-Groys is marked by a weird combination of philosophical clairvoyance and folklore simplicity. As analytical minds Marxists and Post-Marxists display an impressive sensibility for aggressive implications. The truth is that behavior and artistic work of

— 19 — Alexander C. Yakimovich. Understanding Art.The Twentieth Century

many Avant-Gardists have been really hard. But the central argument of theoreticians shows a Neolithic simplicity of a Russian village babushka. She thinks that if somebody is wicked and vicious and does not believe in anything he is a Fascist or Bolshevist. The Lifshitz-Groys conception is dubious also for the reason of being a non-differentiated assumption without any effort of more scrupulous typology. Curiously enough these two smart heads seem to have been convinced that Avant-Garde art has but one and only aim and mission. And this was Destruction, and no aims besides. Serious students cannot restrict themselves by such simplistic generalizations. Maybe a more attentive observation would recognize in Avant-Garde a multiplicity of aims and results and creative strategies. This way starts the second of our set of questions. Until now we have admitted here a certain simplification: we kept describing the creative mechanism of Modernity as a unity of psychic components, critical mood, and daring stance. But going further we have to see that anthropological typology of creative abilities has to be differentiated more in detail. Artists are different; their production is not altogether homogenous. My proposal in typology reads as follows. There are three main typological lines of development in twentieth-century art. Firstly, anthropologically friendly art. Secondly, non-friendly and angry art. And, lastly, art beyond human reactions, or “another art” (“an-art”). This typology can be also named “anthropologically positive art”, “anthropologically negative art” and “neutral art”. One should underscore from the very beginning that three types mentioned above have nothing common with styles, movements or stages of art development of the epoch. What I describe here are three types of depicting people in artworks. In other words we have here three modes of reacting to the challenge of the epoch. The challenge is a well-known thing. The 20th century gave birth to new (extremely effective) means of controlling human populations, masses and nations of the globe. Under “controlling” one should understand new communications and weapons which allow those

— 20 — Alexander C. Yakimovich. Understanding Art.The Twentieth Century

in power to annihilate and hold in their hands the lives of hundreds of millions and more people. The circumstances mentioned above made an artist’s task in the 20th century very unlike anything people could have met with in previous times. All of us can observe irresistible means of subjugating minds, controlling brains and creating illusory realities. The new way of guiding minds and masses in modernized and enlightened world has been already described by the Frankfurt school of social theory several decades ago.15 If an artist does not want to be an ideological instrument of a political regime and tries to slip out from the embrace of the Capitalist market one has to use special strong means. In the first place goes the old good epatage, or sarcastic and aggressive treatment of public. The German painter Georg Baselitz declared in one of his manifests from 1960s that his artistic work consists in kicking people in the groin. He meant it metaphorically. The Moscovite radical artist Oleg Kulik practiced biting people in the direct sense of the word. Modernity brought about the new uncomfortable art to prickle and sorrow our eyes and soul. But “thorny” artists for centuries still were able to address viewers with utmost mastery and cunning in building up plots and allegories, space and action, painting and facture. We admire the miraculous artistry of Bosch and Caravaggio, Goya and Daumier. They excite our perceptive organs and they upset our mind and feeling showing us shocking and unpleasant things. The beautiful and perfect painting which makes us feel a thorn in our side — this was one of the discoveries of Modernity. But is wasn’t sufficient any more in the twentieth century. This period of time witnessed what has been called by Ortega-y- Gasset “revolt of the masses”. It came with the avalanche of mass culture — more exactly demi-educated half-cultured people present everywhere and making their judgment on everything. They obey the State which is hypnotizing society with new means of communications. Even when masses strip away their bridle and rush revolting to streets and places, they still are manipulated masses anyway. The most direct and hard reaction of an artist to this difficult situation will be of course hard and direct. Refuse, resist, hit back! As to technique, it means e. g. refusing to painting, renouncing to artistic charm and

— 21 — Alexander C. Yakimovich. Understanding Art.The Twentieth Century

changing to non-beautiful modes of expression: inventing performances, installations and high-tech means. Down with the paint and brush! Even cultivating painting in full command of its means one can give way to sarcasm and fury. Probably Picasso’s Cubism (not that of more balanced Georges Braque) crops up from this young fury. He takes a guitar, a bottle, a jar, a face, to scroll and press them to energetic conglomerations. Despair, fury and challenge of these Cubist works unmistakably stem from Picasso’s early life experience. He must have been a tough youngster and he kept shocking his bourgeois surroundings by his behavior, his speech and his pictures. Later on his personality and his art went through transformations. His art acquired new dimensions of his maturity, with its specific “multiculturalism”. But in early Cubist years he was a really furious and tough artist. The revolutionary start by Malevich also betrays a tough position. This is quite obvious from his participation in the spectacle “Victory over the Sun” (1913) and his painting “Black Square” (1915). The message of both of them has a parallel in Malevich’s texts containing harsh attacks against museal art and cultural tradition. “Black Square” is an overtly threatening gesture towards the old race of connoisseurs of painterly charms. The art as it existed before is finished — this is the message of this morose and funereal composition. We have here condemnation and punishment in one (not lacking, however, a taint of grim humour). This was, as mentioned before, but one of the three-wing bird of Avant-Garde and Modernist art. Another one was friendly and tender to people. Shining and expressive painting was one of the preferred means in this department of Modernist art. Henri Matisse was a kind and therapeutical artist. His first Avant- Garde paintings of 1905–1906 as well as his panneaux “Dance” and “Music” for Sergey Shchukin made in 1909 confirm the fact that the artist assumed the role of a healer of human souls. He emphatically described his anthropological approach in his articles and essays of 1908–1909.16 His deep wish has been to help people of the new civilization haunted and depressed by the new way of life. Art, as Matisse sees it, has to help and cure people by its hypnotic rhythms and colors. Man who has lost

— 22 — Alexander C. Yakimovich. Understanding Art.The Twentieth Century

himself is of course guilty of his adversities and sins but art is called to help and cure the unhappy sinner. The anthropological friendliness is visibly present in 20th century design. Since Henri van de Velde the West saw a constellation of enthusiastic creators of a new living environment which has to be new and experimental (no reference to the previous cultural life) but all the same comfortable and humanly valid. The Soviet association VHUTEMAS and the German BAUHAUS cultivated this strategy of anthropological friendliness. Means and instruments weren’t of much importance. Designers may use brush and paint, or photography, or graphic chart, or anything else. Technique and style are not as important as making usable and good and pleasant things for people. Concerning “art not for people”, or an-art (another art) — this path of development was not and is not friendly and unaggressive to people but presents meanings not addressed to human compatriots at all. This type of work mainly avoids traditional techniques of painting and lends itself to actionist means of expression as well as to manipulations with objects and high-tech reproduction of reality. In this direction several artists moved since Marcel Duchamp and Kurt Schwitters made their innovatory works in 1910-s and 1920-s. This typological line is not as massive as the friendly one and the aggressive one, but in fact we can follow evidence of an-art presence through the entire 20th century. Presumably creations of land-art in the second half of the century belong to what is called here an-art. Within this category fall the landscape formations prepared in situ and addressing not so much human beings as probably another presence in the Universe. Beginning with objects made by American Robert Smithson in 1960-s land-art grew to a substantial branch of contemporary art. Russia made its contribution with works by Polissky’s group around 2000. Until now art criticism does not want or is not able to speak of the typology of Modernist and Contemporary art. Historical genesis of this typology and its dependence on fundamental principles of creativity in Modern epoch was and is an unwanted secret of art and literary history. Would or should this state of things be improved? Should it be?

— 23 — Alexander C. Yakimovich. Understanding Art.The Twentieth Century

ENDNOTES 1 Philosophie de l’art by H. Taine started appearing in press since 1865 and was followed by innumerable translations in many tongues. J. Burckhardt initially edited his work Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien as early as 1860. 2 Cf. J. Habermas. The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. Cambridge UK, Polity Press, 1990, p. 23 3 A. Giddens. The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge UK, Polity Press, 1990, p. 29 4 Paul Ricoer recognized in the history of Western thinking and culture a specific ability of “distrust” or “principle of suspition” (P. Ricœur. Soi-même comme un autre, Paris, Le Seuil, 1990) 5 Kant’s original idiom was “Habe Mut, dich deines Vestandes zu bedienen” (Have courage to use your reason) 6 A. Yakimovich. Portraits by Diego Velazquez (In Russian). Moscow, GALART, 2012 7 Cf. my essay on Pushkin in: A. Yakimovich. The Art of Disobedience. Free Conversations on Artistic Liberty. (In Russian). St.Peterburg, Bulanin, 2011 8 From German by Louis McNeice. In the original text: Nur der verdient sich Freiheit wie das Leben, Der täglich sie erobern muß 9 “State and Revolution” is the title of Lenin’s key book of early 1917. The Communist leader pleaded for the unconditional struggle against the State and revolutionary transformation of reality 10 K. Jaspers. Die Geistige Situation der Zeit, Berlin: de Gruyter. 1933. English: Man in the Modern Age, trans. E. Paul and C. Paul, London: Routledge, 1933. 11 Blok’s poem has been printed in 1922 in Sankt Petersburg /Petrograd by publishing house “Alkonost” 12 In 1933, Gorky edited an infamous book about the Belomorkanal, the channel for improving trade communication North-South. The huge building site has been peopled by prisoners and presented as an example of the “successful rehabilitation of the former enemies of proletariat”. 13 We are p. e. deliberately omitting here literary absurdists and Dada poets as well as scandalous and cynical writers like L. F. Céline 14 The presumable connection between Avant-Garde art on the one hand and Nazi power on another hand has been discussed by intellectual Marxists as Mikhail Lifshits and Georg Lukacs. Cf. http://mesotes.narod.ru/. Connecting the negativism of Avant-Garde and cynical power cult of Stalinism was the point of Boris Groys (B. Groys. Gesamtkunstwerk Stalin. München–Wien: Hanser Verlag, 1988; Id. The Total Art of Stalinism. Princeton Univ. Press, 1992) 15 The fundamental study by M. Horkheimer and T. Adorno “Dialectic of Enlightenment” initially appeared in German in 1944. (Adorno, T. W. Horkheimer, M. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Trans. Edmund Jephcott. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2002) 16 Matisse on Art, collected by Jack D. Flam. 1973 (University of California Press, 2005)

— 24 — Alexander C. Yakimovich. Understanding Art.The Twentieth Century

REFERENCES 1. A. Giddens, A. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge UK, Polity Press, p. 29 2. Habermas, Cf. J.1990. The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. Cambridge UK, Polity Press, p. 23 3. Yakimovich, A. 2013. “Notes on Late Soviet art. 1960–1985”, Scientific and Analytical Journal TEXT, no. 3, pp. 5–18 4. Burganova, M.A. 2008. “Severe style. Direct speech”, Scientific and Analytical Journal “Burganov House. The Space of Culture”, no. 1

— 25 — Maria A. Burganova. Pierre Cardin and Alexander Burganov: an Artistic Dialogue

Maria A. Burganova Full Member of the Russian Academy of Arts, Doctor of Arts Professor of the Stroganov Moscow State Art Industrial Academy [email protected] Russia, Moscow PIERRE CARDIN AND ALEXANDER BURGANOV: AN ARTISTIC DIALOGUE

Summary: Sometimes it seems that the terrain of modern art fans out in so many directions that it is almost impossible to have a dialogue on the subject. The capacity to listen and the possibility of being heard have become quite rare. Keywords: Alexander Burganov, Pierre Cardin, art, Moscow, Paris, dialog. Pierre Cardin and Alexander Burganov, two outstanding artists whose art is so very different, have managed to find such a common ground for dialogue. Their artistic friendship started several years ago and resulted in a number of unique projects that made a splash in both France and in Russia. The dialogue started with a small sculpture by Alexander Burganov, “The Greeting”, which was presented at the exhibition in Paris. This work of art immediately attracted Pierre Cardin’s attention and marked the beginning of the two artists’ joint artistic projects. The first one was launched in 2007 in the quarry of Lacoste and the chateau of the Marquis de Sade. This place, located near Avignon, is world famous not only because of its historic architecture, but also because of the theatre festival that takes place there. The festival’s slogan is “To discover new talents, and invite those who have already reached the heights of their art”. The festival’s major event was the exhibition of monumental art of Alexander Burganov, designed by Pierre Cardin, whose unique and absolutely special vision of space and shape helped present the sculptures from the most emotional vantage point. The myth of the place, both tragic and lyrical, gave the theme its name: “Eros and Thanatos”. The themes of love and death are here in

— 26 — Maria A. Burganova. Pierre Cardin and Alexander Burganov: an Artistic Dialogue

1. Pierre Cardin’s muse.

— 27 — Maria A. Burganova. Pierre Cardin and Alexander Burganov: an Artistic Dialogue

2. Alexander Burganov’s muse.

— 28 — Maria A. Burganova. Pierre Cardin and Alexander Burganov: an Artistic Dialogue

every work of art. Presented by Alexander Burganov on a monumental scale, they acquired epic proportions. The arms, open for embrace, for a moment become the prostrate arms of the crucified Christ, as if saying: “He wanted to embrace us all, but we crucified Him so that this embrace lasts forever.” An elegant woman’s shoe ends up as the horrific grin of a skull, connecting the flying gait of Love with Death’s heavy steps. A cage with a fine feminine outline imprisons a restless soul inside. Among symbolic compositions there are portraits of Rudolf Nureyev and Marc Chagall — key figures in the cultural dialogue between Russia and France. The exhibition brought together about 30 pieces, each of them perceived as a poignant poetic and dramatic phenomenon, embodied in a plastic form. The success of the exhibition — which lasted for the whole year instead of a month, as had been originally announced — made it clear that the Cardin–Burganov project would continue. The exhibition included a number of new works, and was moved to Paris at Pierre Cardin’s suggestion. It opened on 11th March, 2008 at several sites simultaneously — on the Champs Élysées near the Place de la Concorde, at the Cardin Theatre and at Résidence Maxim’s de Paris. The exhibition was called “Columns and Clouds” and sophisticated Parisians were struck not only by the works themselves, but by the unique form of their presentation. Many sculptures, executed in white composite material, were elevated high above the ground and seemed to be floating against the rows of black mighty tree trunks and the blossoming greenery of the Champs-Élysées. Alexander Burganov’s small bronze compositions offered a contrast to the monumental forms. The general stylistic direction of the pieces may be characterized as “magical realism”, which has roots in early surrealism, but has a notable place of its own in the art of the 20th and 21st centuries. All of the images, expressed in Alexander Burganov’s unique plastic language, won immediate recognition. At the same time, the Moscow-Paris Exhibition opened in the Moscow State Museum “Dom Burganova” (Burganov’s House) on the Arbat. The exhibit showcased the art of both Burganov and Cardin. Here Alexander Burganov offered his version of the exhibition. Inclined towards monumental forms of expression, he presented photos of Cardin’s work on a grandiose scale by creating unique collages and installations. The Lacoste exhibition

— 29 — Maria A. Burganova. Pierre Cardin and Alexander Burganov: an Artistic Dialogue

3. “Marquis de Sade” bronse, stone. h 4.2 m. France, Lacoste. Sculptor Alexander Burganov, architect Pierre Cardin.

— 30 — Maria A. Burganova. Pierre Cardin and Alexander Burganov: an Artistic Dialogue

of monumental work, which began so auspiciously in 2007, continued with success in the summer of 2008. The monument to the Alexander Burganov and Pierre Cardin’s creative cooperation. Cardin was the architect and designer of the installation, while Burganov was the sculptor. The monument stands out for its unique composition and virtuoso plastic execution. The portrait of the Marquis de Sade, the philosopher and man of letters, is enclosed in a cage. This metaphor reflects public opinion and fiction, which turned his surname and its derivatives into common terms. In this lies the reflection of the historic episodes of his biography — the disgraced Marquis spent 30 years of his life in prison, where he created his works in solitude. The speakers at the exhibition’s opening pointed out that this poignant monument was one of the best recent works in France. Alexander Burganov managed to reflect a writer’s genius and insanity, an aristocrat’s bravado, and the impotence of a slandered person. The new exhibition of Alexander Burganov’s works opened in time to coincide with the unveiling of the monument to the Marquis de Sade in Lacoste. This time Burganov’s graphic works were the center piece of the exhibition. The works were enlarged to a grandiose size and erected along the perimeter of a small lake, in the center of which the sculptures were installed. It turned out to be an utterly unique architectural space, where the smooth surface of water replaced the hardwood of the floor of an exhibition hall, and the graphic sheets became its walls. The surrealistic nature of the space was apparent: a floor that may not be walked upon, walls that just surround the environment without restraining it, the sky instead of a roof. All this made the exhibition a universe unto itself. The dialogue of the two artists continued in Moscow in November 2008, when Pierre Cardin arrived at the Moscow State Museum “Dom Burganova”. The museum held a large exhibition of Cardin’s creative projects — architecture, designs for environmental spaces, airplanes, costumes, and furniture. Pierre Cardin was very impressed with the architecture of the museum, created by Alexander Burganov, and, of course, his sculptures, those which he had not seen before. “I am very proud to be Burganov’s friend,” wrote Cardin. “I am astounded and impressed by his work.” These words from the great artist are the best evaluation of the creative work of the famous Russian sculptor Alexander Burganov.

— 31 — Nikolay K. Solovyev. Religious Interiors of Moscow State Period (late 14th – 17th centuries)

Nikolay K. Solovyev Doctor of Arts, Professor, Head of the Department of Theory and History of Decorative Arts and Design Stroganov Moscow State Art Industrial Academy [email protected] Russia, Moscow RELIGIOUS INTERIORS OF MOSCOW STATE PERIOD (LATE 14th – 17th CENTURIES)

Summary: The article deals with the evolution of the religious interiors during the period of the increasing importance of Moscow as the major economic and political centre of Russia, when, on one hand, the old construction traditions were maintained, and, on the other hand, radically new artistic images of the interiors as well as the novel architectural and compositional forms of spacious temples appeared. Church architecture of XVI century (construction of the tent-shaped churches) and of XVII century (“uzorochie” and the Naryshkins Baroque) greatly influenced the subsequent development of . Keywords: religious interiors, Moscow state, architectural traditions, tent-shaped churches, the Naryshkins Baroque.

The increased value of Moscow as a major political, economic and cultural center of Russia, place of the Grand Duke and the Metropolitan stay, as well as the struggle center against the Tatar-Mongol yoke in the 15th century caused the beginning of stone building in Moscow lands. Small one dome Vladimir-Suzdal churches having four internal pillars with arched gable coverage and three-apsed altar, made of cut limestone built in the 12th century, were taken as a sample. The Assumption Cathedral of the Archangel and the Church of the Savior on Bor Under Ivan Kalita in the , which did not survive to our time, were constructed on this compositional scheme. At the same time the Church of Ioann Lestvichnik (the first original example of the steeple church) was built. Interiors of first Moscow temples were small in size,

— 32 — Nikolay K. Solovyev. Religious Interiors of Moscow State Period (late 14th – 17th centuries)

1. Archangel Cathedral in Moscow Kremlin. 1505–1509. Architect Aleviz Novy.

columns were usually shifted to the east and had a square shape, and there were no piers on the interior walls. New churches appear in the Kremlin in the second half of 14th – beginning of 15th century: the Church of the Nativity of the Virgin (1393), the Annunciation Cathedral (about 1397), and the Cathedral of the (1365). Stone churches were constructed in Moscow monasteries (Simonov, 1397–1405, and

— 33 — Nikolay K. Solovyev. Religious Interiors of Moscow State Period (late 14th – 17th centuries)

2. Archangel Cathedral in Moscow Kremlin, interior. 1505–1509. Architect Aleviz Novy.

Andronicov, 1427) and the monasteries of Moscow Region (Sergiev Monastery, 1422, Savvino-Storozhevsky Monastery near Zvenigorod, the beginning of 15th century). In addition, in Kolomna, city from which Russian troops moved to Kulikovo Field, a small white stone church — The Resurrection Church (1360s) and Assumption Cathedral having six internal pillars and three cupolas (1379–1382 the largest stone building of the Moscow land the time; in the 17th century cathedral was dismantled and a new one was built in its place) were built. Interior of the Assumption Cathedral in Kolomna illustrates the tendency of internal space expansion from lateral zones to the dome by use of higher arch walls and, respectively, stepped vaults position. This technique, first used in Chernigov Pyatnitskaya Church (boundary of 12–13th centuries), was typical for the interiors of Moscow churches of the 15th century, expressed in the external volumes as keeled kokoshniks surrounding the central tholobate. Examples of these temples are the oldest survived to this day monuments of Moscow stone architecture — Assumption Cathedral “on Gorodok” (1399), the Cathedral of Savvino Storozhevsky Monastery (1405) in Zvenigorod, Saviour Cathedral of Andronikov Monastery (1410–1427)

— 34 — Nikolay K. Solovyev. Religious Interiors of Moscow State Period (late 14th – 17th centuries)

3. Assumption Cathedral in Moscow Kremlin, interior. 1475–1479. Architect Aristotel Fiorovanti.

— 35 — Nikolay K. Solovyev. Religious Interiors of Moscow State Period (late 14th – 17th centuries)

and Holy Trinity Cathedral in the monastery of the Trinity and St. Sergius (1422–1423).1 Expansion of the internal space from the lateral conches and corner cells to the middle apse and space of the central cross and then to the dome on a high drum, which can be seen in the interior of the Andronikov Monastery cathedral, is especially consistent and dynamical and departed from Byzantine cross-cupola church canons, when “cubic” volume-space structure is replaced with “pillar-like” one, which anticipated hipped stone temples of the 16th century. Harmonious order and dynamics of the Cathedral interior space was assisted by the lack of choirs (unlike, for example, from the Assumption Cathedral “on Gorodok”, where choirs were constructed, for the builder of the Zvenigorod Prince Yuri Cathedral). Interiors of many Moscow churches 14 – early 15th centuries, were enriched with monumental and decorative murals. At that time many teams of Russian and Greek artists worked in Moscow. According to the chronicle, “Russian Iconniki” (icon painters) decorated Archangel Cathedral, Church of John the Lestvichnik and the Saviour on the Bor church. And the Greek masters, as representatives and promoters of “Palaeologus style”, decorated Blessed Virgin Mary church in the 40s of the 14th century at the request of Metropolitan Theognost (a Greek by origin). Theophanes the Greek and Semyon Cherny with disciples painted interior of the Nativity of the Virgin Church in 1395, also together with disciples — The Archangel Cathedral in 1399, and together with Prokhor from Gorodets and — the Annunciation Cathedral in 1405. It is known that Theophanes also served as a secular painter (view of Moscow in the palace of Serpukhov-Bohr Duke). In addition to murals, icons, compiled into altar barriers — iconostases, played enormous compositional role in the interiors of 15th century temples. Initially, the barriers isolating altar from the under the dome space, were made of stone covered with stucco and painted. These barriers were replaced by a new kind of iconostasis, which completely covers the rock barrier, even if it was previously painted during the 15th century. The iconostasis is a typical Russian decoration element in a church interior. Altar barriers were made as low walls or balustrades in the early Byzantine. There were also altar barriers in the form of a colonnade

— 36 — Nikolay K. Solovyev. Religious Interiors of Moscow State Period (late 14th – 17th centuries)

4. Annunciation Cathedral in Moscow Kremlin, western portal, mural painting. 1564.

having architrave, with carved relief decorations (usually a cross or a picture of Jesus Christ). Then, painted wooden icons or a wooden board with icons, called templon, were put on the entablement. A series of icons

— 37 — Nikolay K. Solovyev. Religious Interiors of Moscow State Period (late 14th – 17th centuries)

5. Cathedral of Holy Protection Which Is On the Ditch.1555–1561. Architects Barma and Postnik. with monthly holidays, called worship icons (for worshiping during the next holiday), appears above it from the 11th century. In Russia, the Greek templon became known as “Deisis” (“Deisis” — prayer in Greek) as the main icon depicting Christ with the Virgin and John the Baptist, praying for the forgiveness of human sins. According to Byzantine tradition deisis got a second tier in 13th –14th centuries (a festive and two more in the 15th century) the prophetic and Forefathers, which resulted into an increase of the iconostasis in size, it filled almost all entire height of the chancel arch. Which, in turn, determines the size of icons. Icons of Deisis tier were sometimes higher than 2 meters (their height was 3.14 m in the Dormition Cathedral in Vladimir).

— 38 — Nikolay K. Solovyev. Religious Interiors of Moscow State Period (late 14th – 17th centuries)

6. Church of Holy Protection in Phili in Moscow. Facade scheme and plan 1693–1694.

— 39 — Nikolay K. Solovyev. Religious Interiors of Moscow State Period (late 14th – 17th centuries)

7. Resurrection Cathedral in Novy Jerusalem, rotunda interior. Reconstructed in 1750–1760s by the design of F. B. Rastrelli.

— 40 — Nikolay K. Solovyev. Religious Interiors of Moscow State Period (late 14th – 17th centuries)

Iconostasis was, respectively, small in small churches of Novgorod and Pskov of XV century. Their forms were especially monumental in interiors of Moscow churches, and included the major mural scenes: Deisis tier (stories from the altar apse), a holiday tier (stories from walls and vaults), prophetic and Forefathers tiers (scenes from the dome). Evangelicals on sails were traditionally painted on the royal doors. Icons for the iconostasis were usually created by the same artists who painted murals. Moscow Duke Ivan III, who had subdued Tver, Ryazan, and Novgorod, turned the emblem of the Byzantine emperors — eagle with two heads — into the Russian state emblem and proclaimed himself as the “Emperor of All Russian Lands” in 1485. The fall of the Byzantine Empire in the middle of the 15th century helped the nomination of the as successor of Constantinople. It resulted into raising rate of construction activity in the “Third Rome” — Moscow (especially in the Moscow Kremlin). The first to replace a small Assumption Cathedral of the 15th century in 1472 was the same name Cathedral modeled on example of the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir city and constructed by Moscow artists Krivtsov and Myshkin. Imperfect designs, poor quality of the cement and the earthquake caused destruction of nearly finished building in 1474. Pskov builders, and then the famous Italian architect and engineer Aristotle Fioravanti were invited to restore it. The new church was also supposed to copy the construction of a cathedral in Vladimir city that was why Fioravanti was sent there to get acquainted with the ancient Russian architecture. The construction of the Assumption Cathedral was a significant milestone for the national architecture. Italian architect managed to avoid direct repeats of historical forms and, at the same time, created a monumental temple, which harmonically combined innovation with the artistic traditions of ancient Russia. The building process helped Russian masters to learn advanced architectural and artistic methods and to get acquainted with new techniques and tools. The Moscow Assumption Cathedral is a building with six internal pillars, five apsis and five domes. Fundamental innovation of its interior lies in the fact that it does not have strong cross system, and the space is of a single hall structure. This was achieved by use of pillars with unusually thin section,

— 41 — Nikolay K. Solovyev. Religious Interiors of Moscow State Period (late 14th – 17th centuries)

identical pitch height and identical size of cells, covered with cross vaults, which they form, as well as uniform and enough bright light from tall windows and dome drum. Legs of the Assumption Cathedral are no longer traditional pillars and slender columns with bases and capitals (originally Corinthian, and subsequently — Byzantian). For structural stability they were straightened with metal chains. Freely browse and light interior of the cathedral was magnificent and secular (“palatial”) at the same time, which was enthusiastically noticed by contemporaries. A significant role in the art image of its interior was played by festive colors — frescoes (made at the beginning of the 16th century), mosaic floor, iconostasis, collected from many well-known icons of Vladimir city, gold and gemstones icon incasements, church utensils and clothes of the clergy. Pskov masters built the church court of the Grand Dukes Annunciation Cathedral and the home church of the Moscow Metropolitans — the Church of Deposition of the Robe, in the 80s of the 15th century in the Moscow Kremlin.2 Interiors of these house churches, according to their purposes were more intimate, cozy and traditional (the cross-cupola, four- pillar, covered, like Pskov and early Moscow churches, with a system of stepped arches). The interior of Dukhovskoy Trinity-Sergius Monastery (1476–1477) created by the same masters was close to them by structure. Brick, used for construction of these churches, would be a main building material for the monumental architecture of the 16th – 17th centuries. A system of step-elevated above the vaults arch walls was used in many monastic churches beyond the Moscow region, as for example in The Nativity Cathedral of Ferapontov Monastery (1491), where internal space increases gradually to the central dome, creating a vertically aspiring composition. The interiors of the Nativity Cathedral, famous for entirely- preserved wall paintings, were made in 1500–1502 by outstanding Russian painter Dionisy. Murals, covering all architectural interior surfaces made in the golden-blue palette, create a feeling of lightness, elegance and airiness, which expands the relatively small interior space. Works of Dionisy, continuing humanistic works of Andrei Rublev, are strikingly different in character from the monumental painting of 12–14th centuries. Picturesque images are marked not with severity, austerity and dynamic

— 42 — Nikolay K. Solovyev. Religious Interiors of Moscow State Period (late 14th – 17th centuries)

9. Church of Holy Protection in Phili in Moscow. Facade scheme and plan.1693–1694.

— 43 — Nikolay K. Solovyev. Religious Interiors of Moscow State Period (late 14th – 17th centuries)

expression, but with a soft lyrical spirit. The composition of frescoes, generalization of their forms, plastic expressiveness, elegance, delicate coloring put murals of the Nativity Cathedral in a number of outstanding works of world art and artistic-architectural synthesis. Along with relatively large four-pillar temples, small churches having no internal pillars, appeared in the early 15th century in Pskov and became widely spread at the end of the 15 – beginning of 16th century in Moscow and other Russian cities. Examples of such churches are: Church of Tryphon in Naprudnoy settlement in Moscow (the beginning of the 16th century) Church of the Nativity in the Yurkino estate near Moscow (1504), Church of the Protection in Rubtsovo (1619–1627). Common interior space of these churches was overlapped with a cross arch, original invention of Russian masters which do not occur anywhere else (domical vault with four-cylindrical vaults, corresponding to the central parts of the walls, incised into it and a light drum, at their intersection). Such churches were usually set in posads and boyar estates replacing old wooden temples. The Archangel Cathedral (1505–1509) served as the burial place of the Moscow grand dukes. It was built by an Italian architect Aleviz Novy, and was one of the largest religious buildings of the Moscow Kremlin since the 16th century.3 This temple with six internal pillars stands out of religious buildings of its time, due to the facades decorated with elements of the Italian Renaissance architecture. In contrast to the ancient churches built on Byzantine traditions of external and internal structural unity, internal space in the cathedral does not correspond with its external volume, because of pilasters, divided by cornice as a two-storried palazzo. In this regard, Archangel’s Cathedral is a unique exception from compositional principles that guided ancient Russian architects. Russian cultic architecture of the 16th century was notable for a great variety of church types. At this time the union of Russian lands round Moscow completed and a unified all-Russian architecture formed, where local schools were hardly identified (with the exception of Novgorod and Pskov, maintaining local building traditions of previous centuries). All churches of this century can be divided into three main groups: the monumental, majestic structures associated with the ideology of autocracy and nationhood; large monastic churches that were also built with the

— 44 — Nikolay K. Solovyev. Religious Interiors of Moscow State Period (late 14th – 17th centuries)

help of royal treasury; and townsmen churches, number of which much increased in the 16th century, due to growth of urban population and which were built with the help of ordinary people. Often these churches were set on a wide basement, allowing the use of the ground floor for business purposes, and the upper part — as an ambulatory or a gallery. The Assumption Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin had a significant impact on cultic architecture of a monastery and state-building. Monumental five-domed cathedrals in Vologda, Rostov Veliky, Moscow Novodevichy Monastery, in Pereslavl-Zaleski, the Trinity-Macarius Monastery in Kalyazin, Khutyn monastery near Novgorod and others were built on its image in the 16th century. Wooden hipped buildings, widespread in Russian lands, became a prototype for the main innovation in cultic architecture of the 16th century — the appearance of stone tent-roofed temples. The development of stone fortification building also had a certain influence on the occurrence of pillar-stone churches (turrets, watch towers). One of the earliest tent temples is the Church of the Ascension in Kolomna (1532), construction of which is associated with the birth of Basil III — son of Ivan (later Ivan the Terrible).4 The Church of the Ascension can be attributed to outstanding works of the world architecture in its artistic perfection. Russian masters, whose names we do not know, decisively moved away from the Byzantine traditions of a cross- cupola church, and created an entirely new and original architectural composition, which had no analogues. The memorial church is a square in plane, surrounded by ambulatory (open in the 16th century) with four small narthexes, having a shape of a cross in the bottom. The facades of these narthexes end with kokoshniks, providing compositional shift to octagonal top part, and then to the tent. Bold innovation is the absence of the altar apse — the main part of the Christian church, and the absolute centrality of the church interior. The interior of the church has a clearly expressed vertical tendency (8.5 × 8.5 × 60 m). Pilasters with capitals (repeating in pattern and height of the outer pilasters), over which the interior tchetverik (square section) turns octagon and then the tent, with windows floodlighting the church, emphasize this verticality. Good illumination of interior (comparatively

— 45 — Nikolay K. Solovyev. Religious Interiors of Moscow State Period (late 14th – 17th centuries) with dark churches of that time) was noted by contemporaries, and chronicles, it was stressed that the church is “high and beautiful and light”. There were no such temples before in Russia. Ornamental interior decoration of the church was quite poor: monochrome walls, absence of murals, strictly detailed order. Artistic, vivid expressiveness was built mainly through structurally ordered plasticity of architectural surfaces and dynamics of the internal space. The erection of the Ascension Church in Kolomna was the beginning of a steepled church construction in various cities of Russia. These temples of the 16th – the first half of the 17th century were usually built on the order of the Royal Court and were devoted to some memorable events. Often these churches represented the composition of square (chetverik)-octagon-tent, as the Kolomna church was placed on a basement and surrounded with ambulatories (for example, the church of Metropolitan Peter in Pereslavl, 1585; Church of the Epiphany in the village of Krasnaya, 1592; the Church of the Intercession in Medvedkovo village of Moscow Region, 1620s). The relative simplicity of vertically directed interiors of churches contrasted with the complexity of their plastic facades (expressive silhouette, multitiered construction, horizontally divided with cornices and kokoshniks). External volumes had more priority compositional significance than the internal space. In the first half of 17th century, along with one-tent temples, stone churches having multiple-tent roof come into existence. The interior of these buildings lose organic connection with the external volume, tent separated from the main interior space (in wooden churches as well) by intermediate overlap, reducing both the heat losses during cold winters and the architectural and artistic expression of the space itself. Examples are the three-tent “Wonderful” Church in Uglich (1628), the two-tent Gate Church of the Ferapontov Monastery (1649–1650), the five-tent Church of the Nativity in Putinki in Moscow (1649–1652). All the tents, except the bell tower, are purely decorative elements of an architectural composition and have no relations with interior space. In the 16th century Russian architecture had another new type of stone churches — many-pillar temples. The first example of such a church

— 46 — Nikolay K. Solovyev. Religious Interiors of Moscow State Period (late 14th – 17th centuries)

is the Church of St. John the Baptist in the village of Djakovo, erected in 1547 in honor of the adoption of Ivan the Terrible royal title. This church consists of a central octagonal volume, surrounded by four smaller octagonal tower-shaped volumes, starting from the ground. The interior is thus divided into five separate churches of the canonical five-domed system and connected by passages. Plastic interior design of the main central volume is much more restrained than its facades. It includes a series of horizontal cornices corresponding to the tiers of the composition, and vertical niches in the walls. A historical significance of the church in the village of Djakovo is that this church, after the nearby church in the Kolomna village, prepared the way for an emergence of an outstanding masterpiece of not only Russian, but world architecture as well — the Cathedral of Intercession, “on the moat”, known as St. Basil’s Cathedral, built in 1555–1561 by the project of Russian masters Barma and Postnik. Dedicated to the largest military and political victory of Russia — the taking of Kazan by Russian troops, St. Basil’s Cathedral represents the idea of versatility designed in Dyakovo Church, thus withdraw from the Byzantine traditions of religious architecture. Annals are very enthusiastic about architects, daring the brazen violation of the design, issued by the Ivan Terrible. Tsar ordered the temple to include eight altars, but masters erected nine churches with mutually subordinated volumes in order to balance the overall composition of the temple. The central church stands out and has the highest tented roof. These volumes are constructed on the common basement and are connected by transitions. The main entrance from the Red Square is distinguished with a wide outer tented terrace steps.5 At the heart of the composition plan is a system of inscribed squares (large outer square with large pillars in its corners, and diagonally inscribed square — with smaller pillars). The interiors of the Intercession Cathedral are relatively small and play a secondary role in relation to the complex diversity of the outer volumes. The largest central church takes an area of only about 80 square meters. The interiors of churches are very restrained. Their interiors were originally whitewashed, and the walls, vaults of stairs and passages were covered with ornamental paintings. Cornices, pilasters, square decorative brickworks and dome

— 47 — Nikolay K. Solovyev. Religious Interiors of Moscow State Period (late 14th – 17th centuries)

10. Church of St. Elijah in Yaroslavl. Frescoes in the interior. 1680.

— 48 — Nikolay K. Solovyev. Religious Interiors of Moscow State Period (late 14th – 17th centuries)

laying made in a form of spirally rotating stars can be seen as interior decorative details. Architectural and artistic image of such a huge building, with a relative intimacy of interiors, has its own dynamics and uncommon compositional elements due to a “fourth dimension” — the perception of interior spaces in the movement by layering visual impressions and their theatricality. Moving through the labyrinth of low vaulted fuscous transitions you can see constantly alternating different configurations of internal space, unexpected perspectives, interiors of side churches and the aspired up to the 46-meters central space of the Intercession temple tent. Creation of the Intercession Cathedral can be considered as the culmination of the national artistic ideas that developed in Russian architecture of the 16th century and laid the foundation for “figured” style in architecture of the next century. Russian architecture of the 17th century can be divided into three periods. The first quarter of the century is a period of foreign intervention, Trouble times and the ensuing economic collapse, when the building industry still used traditional architectural forms and compositional techniques even after the reduction. The second and third quarters of the century show the rise of construction activity, which was largely caused by the expansion of the Russian state boundaries, reunification of Ukraine with Russia, formation of the nationwide economic market, construction of new cities and fortifications, growth of a “social order” in the monumental stone building with the increased proportion of residential buildings. In the last quarter of the century absolutist state form in Russia completed, cultural ties with Western Europe were strengthening; flourishing period of construction activity continued and new principles of stylistic unity in the architecture of different building types appeared — religious, public and residential. Patriarch Nikon, who was at the head of the church from 1652 to 1666 years, had a definite influence on the nature of religious architecture of the 17th century. In his construction policy he tried to stop the process of religious and civil architecture convergence which started in the middle of the 16th century and continued in the 17th century (a deviation from canons, multicolor, highly decorative forms). Charters of the time directed church “in the order of the proper legal provisions and statutory …

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to build a one, three or five-head churches, and tent church — not to build.”6 However, being a “Century of Changes” man, Nikon showed inconsistency in his construction initiatives. So, on his assignment and by order of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, Resurrection Monastery was laid in 1658 and was called the New Jerusalem on the river Istra near Moscow.7 The main building of the monastery — the Church of the Resurrection of the Christ with the tomb of the Holy Sepulcher (1658–1666) has no analogues in the cultic building of other Orthodox countries. It has only the main features in common with Jerusalem prototype, and is based more on the symbolism of the composition than on the identity or similarity of individual forms. The architecture of the Resurrection Cathedral paradoxically freely combines a 24-meter diameter cylindrical rotunda, covered with round tent, with a domed basilica bays and passage around the altar (typical of the Romanesque churches of Burgundy and the Gothic interiors) — deambulatory. The complex composition of interconnected picturesque external volumes is identically expressed in the interiors of the Constantine and Helena church, characterized by a no less complex system of large volumes, contrasting with the mysterious chamber-interior of the underground crypt. The interiors of the Resurrection Cathedral are extremely interesting in its decorative solution. Widely used on the facades of the 17th century churches ceramic polychrome decoration (moldings, decorative brickworks, casings and portals) for the first time was used in the interiors of the Resurrection Cathedral of the New Jerusalem Monastery making it a unique work of art synthesis of the 17th century. The interior of the cathedral had tileworks of different colours: white, green, blue, yellow and brown, and floral decorative ornament almost universally. Ceramic iconostasis of the church aisles, ceramic portals and crown mouldings of an irregular shape, drum frieze of the underground church, ceramic balustrade and cimbias of the Calvary Chapel, as well as polychromatic ceramic floors of the New Jerusalem Church — all these elements were a single plastic unit of artistic interiors, combining white background walls and vaults with bright ceramic inserts.8 It is believed that order forms in Russian interiors appeared in the Resurrection Cathedral (pilasters and engaged columns of the iconostasis made of glazed ceramics), such

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architectural details can be considered as forerunners of Naryshkin baroque of 17th – 18th centuries. Interiors of the New Jerusalem Church considered a kind of exception among Russian churches, of the second and the third quarter of the 17th century. The main type of cult buildings of this time were temples having no internal pillars or four of them with hipped roof (instead of arched gable coverage) or decorated with kokoshniks. Such churches were usually put on a basement, and were combined in a complex ensemble with hipped bell tower, chapels, galleries and stairs, tented porch (for example, the Moscow Church of the Holy Trinity in Nikitniki, 1628–1653 and Trinity Church in Ostankino, 1678, Yaroslavl church of Elijah the Prophet, 1647–1650 and church complex in the Korovniki, 1649–1680). Church buildings were often stretched in east-west axis to increase space for the congregation. Under-cupola interior sections received a rectangular shape (instead of square), and drums, respectively, were based on larger number of arches. The external forms of the temples mismatched their internal structure. The 17th century was marked by a great number of religious architecture monuments in various Russian cities — the Great Rostov, Suzdal, Romanov-Borisoglebsk (Tutaev), Ryazan, Kostroma, etc. Significant sizes especially had interiors of five-domed four-pillar churches of Yaroslavl, which was one of the largest and wealthiest Russian trading cities in the middle of the 17th century with a large population of traders and crafters. Monumental and decorative painting of these churches played a big role in artistic image of interiors. Vaults, walls, pillars of the temple and the porch were covered with frescoes. Often, even windows slopes were painted. Yaroslavl school of painting had made many innovations in the domestic mural art. The frescoes became various in compositions, vivid in color, had increasing range of themes, became illustrated by biblical texts, had multi-figured scenes, complex architectural backgrounds, some images were provided with explanatory poems. Interior paintings of the Yaroslavl church of Elijah the Prophet, made by team of 13 craftsmen under the guidance of artists from Kostroma Gury Nikitin and Sila Savin, are especially famous. The events of Holy Scripture were vividly interpreted as entertaining fairy tales with a lot of scenes from everyday life.

— 51 — Nikolay K. Solovyev. Religious Interiors of Moscow State Period (late 14th – 17th centuries)

The basis for some mural compositions were biblical themes, published in Holland in the middle of the 17th century, which underwent radical revision in their mural form. Interior paintings of the Moscow Church of the Holy Trinity in Nikitniki, Trinity Cathedral of Kalyazin Monastery, Church of the Resurrection in Rostov the Great and Archangel Cathedral in Moscow made in the 17th century, are also very interesting. The border of the 17th – 18th centuries is the so-called period of the Naryshkin or Moscow Baroque, in Russia and can be considered as a transition of architecture from the Middle Ages to Modern Times. Stone building industry of this time experiences unusual prosperity. Moscow architects obtain admittance to such works of high and late Italian Renaissance architecture theorists, as S. Serlio (“All kinds of Architecture and Perspective”) and JB Vignola (the “Rule of five orders in architecture”). Secular principles penetrate into the cultic architecture, introducing elements of the order system. However, order forms do not have canonical proportions and structural-tectonic basement, and transforms into architectural decorations, continuing Russian style of baroque motifs (overwrought with details, numerous pilaster sides, divided elbow linings, twisted forms, etc.) figurative traditions of previous decades. The decoration of the facades and interiors with white stone carving is widely used. Sometimes order forms, dividing facades on separate floors, have no connection with the inner space of a single church (example Vvedensky Cathedral in Solvychegodsk, 1689–1693, Church of St. Nicholas the Great Cross in Moscow, 1680–1688, Church of the Nativity in Nizhny Novgorod, consecrated in 1719). Religious architecture of this period was characterized by a great variety of church types — having no or four internal pillars “Kletskaya” (copying tall wooden Kletskaya — block type temple) and new — tiered bell towers, where traditional octagon on the central part of a square tower combines with the quatrefoil configuration of the lower plane part (Church of the Intercession in Fili, 1693–1694, white stone church of the Sign in Dubrovitsy, which had no belfry, 1690–1704, Church of the Saviour in the village of Ubory, 1694–1697, architect YG Bukhvostov) or as a rectangle with apsis-type ends (Trinity Church in the village of Troitse- Lykovo, 1698–1704, architect J. G. Bukhvostov). These churches were set

— 52 — Nikolay K. Solovyev. Religious Interiors of Moscow State Period (late 14th – 17th centuries)

on pedestals or basements and were surrounded by open ambulatories, a kind of intermediate (“gray”) zone, which connected the interior and the surrounding area by wide grand staircases. Just as the external volumes, interiors of the 17th – 18th centuries churches are decorative, elegant, rich and “fashionable”. In the Church of the Intercession in Fili interior is symmetric, all apses are almost equal. Instead of traditional choirs in the western wall placed a box arranged for the customer — L. K Naryshkin. The complexity and richness of big architectural forms is complemented by large carved arches and iconostasis. Gilt carved iconostasis and box, as well as the absence of traditional fresco paintings (typical of earlier decades) make church interior look like a palace. The church of Trinity-Lykovo village has a Ukrainian type of plan in west-east axis, with the refectory (West Chapel), identical to altar in size and space. Passage in the central western portal is relatively low and dark room (drum head is blind), and contrasts with vertically aspired, bathed in light, 20-meters height space in the central section which seems especially solemn. This major spatial image complemented by lush interiors, carved balustrades, arches, galleries and window frames with red walls on the background. Just as in the Church in Fili, balcony level is unusual for Russian cultic interiors and is located on the western wall of the gallery. It was meant for the owners of estate, made as a box with a canopy, covered with gilded carved wood, echoing with gilded carving of the iconostasis.

ENDNOTES 1 Elevated arch walls and the second row of arched glabes can also be found in Serbian architecture of the time, indicating cultural relations between Russia and South Slavic states. 2 Choirs of the Annunciation Cathedral were connected with the palace by wooden passages. In the middle of the XVI century the church was built up with the covered arched arcades, with chapels. At the same time six cupolas were added to the original three. The interior of the cathedral is enriched with the iconostasis made by Theophanes the Greek and Andrei Rublev. 3 Aleviz Novy built the Church of the Assumption in the Old and several suburb churches in Moscow.

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4 The church is built of brick with white stone details, combining traditional architecture of early Moscow style (keeled arches, square decorative brickworks) with order forms (pilasters, entablature, capitals, brackets). 5 Today look of Intercession Cathedral is somehow different from its original appearance. At the end of the XVI century the cathedral was built up with a chapel of St. Basil, which gave him the middle name. In the XVII century bell tower was built, outdoor galleries were closed with vaults, appeared tented terraces and polychromic facades, which originally were primarily made of brick and white stone details. 6 Cit. by: Ikonnikov AV A Thousand Years of Russian architecture. – M., 1990. – S. 201. 7 Resurrection New Jerusalem Monastery, designed as a new large religious complex have a complex theological program based on the idea of reproduction of main Palestinian shrine near Moscow — the temple of the Holy Sepulcher. Measurements and model the Jerusalem temple and the tomb of the Holy Sepulcher were used for the building of this construction. All this stuff was brought from Palestine, even drawings of the temple, published in 1609 in Rome. 8 A special plant was built for the production of ceramic components for the New Jerusalem church. Ceramic decorations of the cathedral were designed by Belarusian artists Peter Zaborski and Stepan Polubesa.

REFERENCES 1. Ikonnikov, A. V.1990. Thousand Years of Russian Architecture. Moscow 2. Maksimov, P. N. 1976. Creative Methods of Ancient Russian Architects. Moscow 3. Mikhailovsky, B. V., Purishev B. I. 1941. Essays on History of Ancient Russian Monumental Painting from the Second Half of XIV Century through Early XVII Century. Moscow, Leningrad 4. Burganova, M. A. 2011. Russian Religious Sculpture XVIII–XIX Centuries. Art, Literature and Music Scientific and Analytical Journal “Burganov House. The Space of Culture”. vol.1, pp 226–241 5. Prutsyn, O. 2001. Novy Jerusalem Ceramics. Moscow 6. Ushakov, Y. S., Slavina T. A.1993. History of Russian Architecture. St.Petersburg 7. Solovyev, N. C., Maystrovskaya M. T., Turchin V. S., Dazhina V. D. 2013. General History of Interior. Moscow 8. Solovyev, N. 2013. “Religious Interiors of Feudal Disunity Period”, Art and Literature Scientific and Analytical JournalTEXTS no. 4

— 54 — Varvara V. Kashirina. The History of St. Theophan the Recluse’s Library

Varvara V. Kashirina Doctor of Sciences The Russian Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture [email protected] Russia, Moscow THE HISTORY OF ST. THEOPHAN THE RECLUSE’S LIBRARY

Summary: 2015 is the year of the 200th anniversary since the date of birth of St. Theophan the Recluse, also known as “Theophan Zatvornik” (1815– 1894), one of the most prominent theologians and theological writers of the 19th century. In Vyshinska Hermitage of Dormition the Saint spent the last 28 years of his life, 22 of which in complete recluse. This time was the most prolific for him as a theologian and a theological writer. During all his life St. Theophan was collecting books. He left his first library to Olonets Theological Seminary where he served as a rector since 15th September, 1855 till 21st May, 1856, but the most complete book collection which the bishop had been building up till the last days of his life was in his cells in Vyshinska Hermitage. After his death St. Theophan’s library was inventoried by Moscow Theological Seminary librarian N. A. Kolosov. The total number of books was 1400 titles in 3400 volumes apart from journals and small booklets. According to N. A. Kolosov the characteristic feature of the library was its versatility. Later St. Theophan’s library was bought by Moscow merchants Alexander, Michael, Sergey and Konstantin Losevs and then donated to a reading room at Moscow church of St. Nicolas the Miracle-Worker in Tolmachi. After the revolution the books became a part of the Rumyantsev Museum (currently The Russian State Library) holdings and were sorted into different departments. Keywords: St. Theophan the Recluse, also known as “Theophan Zatvornik”, library, Vyshinska Hermitage, N. A. Kolosov, Moscow church of St. Nicolas the Miracle-Worker in Tolmachi, the Losevs, The Russian State Library. 2015 is the year of the 200th anniversary since the date of birth of St. Theophan the Recluse, also known as “Theophan Zatvornik” (1815–1894),

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1. Self-portrait of St. Theophan the Recluse (1815–1894)

— 56 — Varvara V. Kashirina. The History of St. Theophanthe Recluse’s Library

one of the most prominent theologians and theological writers of the 19th century. In Vyshinska Hermitage of Dormition the Saint spent 28 last years of his life, 22 of which in complete recluse. This time was the most prolific for him as a theologian and a theological writer. The value of these works could be testified by a doctor’s degree which was given to him after 18 years of recluse by St. Petersburg Theological Academy. During all his life St. Theophan was collecting books. He left his first library to Olonets Theological Seminary where he served as a rector since 15th September, 1855 till 21st May, 1856. Unfortunately, nothing is known about the books it consisted of and where they are now. One more significant collection of books built up by St. Theophan was in his cells in Vyshinska Hermitage. Its first description which appeared in the article “In the Saint’s Cell”1 was made by an unknown author right after St. Theophan’s death. So now for the first time readers could learn about the cell interior as well as the library placed in a separate room. “What a huge collection of books! Books are everywhere, piles of them… Here is the History of Russia by Solovyov, World History by Schlosser, works by Hegel, Fichte, Jacobi… But the vast majority of the books are religious: by Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great, John Chrysostom, Isaac of Nineveh, Nilus of Sora, Tikhon of Zadonsk, Dimitry of Rostov and a large number other great spiritual leaders and ascetics… Menaion Reader in Greek, The Great Menaion Reader by Dimitry of Rostov… Many books on Theology and Church History in French, German and English, e. g. 150 volumes of Theological Encyclopaedia in French”.2 The interior of the room housing the library is also described by one of St. Theophan’s contemporaries, “All the four walls of the room from top to bottom are horizontally lined with numerous shelves full of books in different languages (Jewish, Ancient and Modern Greek, Latin, French, German, English, Slavonic, Russian). Most of the books are on Theology, Morality, Church History. There are quite a few books on Civil History, Philosophy, Language and Literature, Mathematics, Architecture, Art, Medicine; there are also geographical maps, historical atlases in different languages, albums with paintings by different artists, lots of theological journals as well as secular magazines. There are

— 57 — Varvara V. Kashirina. The History of St. Theophanthe Recluse’s Library

also piles of St. Theophan’s own works and manuscripts — more than five reams of paper covered with writing. In the same room there is a cabinet with stationery and a cluttered desk, but not in the place where it used to be. Several shelves on the western wall are filled with vials, jars, boxes with all sorts of medicines used by His Eminence to cure his own self and sometimes other people. A photographic camera obscura, telescope, microscope, easel, a few palettes, oils, brushes, etc. also found their places here in this room …”3 The first professional inventory of the library was made by the librarian of Moscow Theological Seminary Nikolay A. Kolosov4 in 1894, the year the sainted hierarch died. The total number of books was 1400 titles in 3400 volumes apart from journals and small booklets. According to N. A. Kolosov the characteristic feature of the library was its versatility in the subjects of collected works, covering a wide range of human knowledge and most important questions, as well as preference for encyclopaedias, commentaries on the Books of the Old and New Testament, systems, general courses, etc.5 In his description N. A. Kolosov pointed out the following sections:6 1. Editions by Abbot Migne, Patrology — two series, Greek and Latin and others. The total number of all volumes is over 750. 2. Holy Scripture. Up to 280 titles. 3. Christian Apologetics and History of Religions. Up to 140 titles. 4. Dogmatic, Moral and Comparative Theology. Up to 140 titles. 5. Old and New Testament History. Up to 50 titles. 6. Patrology. Up to 80 titles. 7. General Church History. Up to 100 titles. 8. History of Western Christian Creeds. Up to 40 titles. 9. Section of Russian Church History. Over 50 titles. 10. Preaching. Up to 80 titles. 11. Liturgical section. Up to 80 titles. 12. Philosophical section (Philosophy, Psychology, Logic and Pedagogy). Up to 80 titles. 13. General History. 24 titles. 14. Russian History. Up to 50 titles. 15. Literature section. About 40 titles.

— 58 — Varvara V. Kashirina. The History of St. Theophanthe Recluse’s Library

16. Medicine. About 30 works. 17. Natural Science. Up to 35 titles. 18. Linguistics. Up to 20 titles. Dictionaries and partly Grammar of many languages and some works on linguistics. 19. Cartography. Over 20 atlases, plans and maps. 20. Periodicals. Up to 120 titles. Despite Vyshinska Hermitage father superior Archimandrite Arkady’s (Chestonov) wish to transfer the ownership of the library to Moscow Theological Academy it was bought by Moscow merchants Alexander, Michael, Sergey and Konstantin Losevs and later donated to a reading room at Moscow church of St. Nicolas the Miracle-Worker in Tolmachi.7 Initially the church guardianship asked Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna Sergius (Lyapidevsky) for permission to open a reading room. Soon the permission was given and the reading room named after the donators Luke and Matthew Losevs at Moscow church of St. Nicolas the Miracle-Worker in Tolmachi was opened. In a few years a new two-storey building was built for the parish school and St. Theophan’s library. On 26th January, 1903 it was consecrated by the Bishop of Dmitrov, vicar of Moscow diocese Tryphon (Turkestanov), rector of Moscow Theological Seminary Archimandrite Anastasiy (Gribanovsky) together with Archimandrite Seraphim, who was responsible for parish schools in the diocese, Archpriest K. I. Bogoyavlensky, rural dean Archpriest N. A. Kopyov and the father superior of the church of St. Nicolas the Miracle-Worker in Tolmachi fr. Michael Fiveisky. The library with the capacity of 500 people was placed on the ground floor of the building. After the Revolution, in 1918–1920s, the library became a part of the Rumyantsev Museum8 (currently The Russian State Library) and was sorted into different departments. Now it is only possible to restore its completeness using odd descriptions left by contemporaries as well as the stamp of the Losevs’ reading room which can be found on every book.

— 59 — Varvara V. Kashirina. The History of St. Theophanthe Recluse’s Library

ENDNOTES 1 “In the Recluse’s Cell”. 1894. Edifying Reading, vol. 1, pp. 687–702. 2 Ib., p. 299. 3 “Recollections about reposed in the Lord Bishop Theophan”. 1895. Tambov diocese bulletin, no 39, pp. 1001–1003. 4 Kolosov, N.A. 1895, “Theophan Zatvornik’s Library”, Edifying Reading, vol. 1, pp. 553–566. Separate edition: Kolosov N. A. 1895. Theophan Zatvornik’s Library. Moscow. 5 Kolosov N. A. 1895. Theophan Zatvornik’s Library. Moscow, p. 2. 6 Ib., pp. 2–6 7 “Parish Guardianship at the Church of St. Nicolas the Miracle-Worker in Tolmachi”. 1898. Edifying Reading, vol. 1, pp. 356–362. 8 The Account of the State Rumyantsev Museum for 1916–1922. [1923]. Moscow: State Publishing House, pp. 97–98.

REFERENCES 1. “In the Recluse’s Cell”. 1894. Edifying Reading, vol. 1, pp. 687–702. 2. Kolosov, N.A. 1895, “Theophan Zatvornik’s Library”, Edifying Reading, vol. 1, pp. 553–566. 3. Kolosov N. A. 1895. Theophan Zatvornik’s Library. Moscow. 4. “Recollections about reposed in the Lord Bishop Theophan”. 1895. Tambov diocese bulletin, no 39, pp. 1001–1003. 5. The Account of the State Rumyantsev Museum for 1916–1922. [1923]. Moscow: State Publishing House. 6. “Parish Guardianship at the Church of St. Nicolas the Miracle-Worker in Tolmachi”. 1898. Edifying Reading, vol. 1, pp. 356–362.

— 60 — Starovoytova Y. Anastasia. A painting of Georg Opitz

Starovoytova Y. Anastasia Corresponding member of the National Chamber experts (C.N.E.S., Paris) [email protected] Russia, Moscow A PAINTING OF GEORG OPITZ

Summary: This study is focused on a large painting by Georg Opitz, representing people dressed in traditional clothes. They stand against a view of a town and gather around a person dressed in uniform, who is the Emperor Nicolas I. Georg Opitz represents here the visit of the Emperor of Russia of the most popular international yar market, based in the heart of the country, at Nijny-Novgorod. People in traditional clothes represent different nationalities living in Russia in the XIXth century. Keywords: Painting, Georg Opitz, Russian, Folklore, Makaryevskaya Fair. LA VISITE DE L’EMPEREUR RUSSE NICOLAS IER DE LA FOIRE « MAKARIEVSKAYA » À NIJNI NOVGOROD

En juin 2005, une maison de ventes française a présenté au public un grand tableau du peintre allemand Georg Emmanuel Opitz (Prague 1775 – Leipzig 1841), mesurant 183,5 × 248 cm. Ce tableau a repassé en vente, un an plus tard, dans le cadre de la vente russe dans une maison de vente anglaise. Le sujet de cet immense tableau raconte un épisode de la vie de l’empire Russe, mais il n’était pas évident de dire lequel, dès le premier abord. Les recherches sur ce tableau que j’ai menés en qualité d’experte engagée par la maison de vente française, ont données des résultats inattendus. Mes recherches prouvent que l’œuvre de G. Opitz, connu surtout par ses aquarelles et miniatures, est remarquable dans la mesure où elle témoigne d’un fait historique et ethnographique de l’histoire russe, ainsi que d’un évènement important de la cour impériale russe, pourtant complètement ignoré aujourd’hui. Les biographes de

— 61 — Starovoytova Y. Anastasia. A painting of Georg Opitz

1. Opitz, Georg Emanuel (1775–1841) «Makarevskaya fair in Nizhny Novgorod». The fi rst quarter of the 19th century. Oil on canvas. 183.5 × 248 cm.

Georg Emmanuel Opitz mentionnent son intérêt pour ce qui a attrait au folklore, à partir de 1807. En 1814 il peint une série d’aquarelles intitulées « Les Kozaks russes à Paris », dont une partie est conservé au Musée Historique d’Etat à Moscou. L’intérêt pour les costumes et les meurs le poussa à effectuer quelques voyages, les outils de peintre à la main, dont, probablement, un voyage en Russie, dans les années 1830, où il a visité la foire de Nijni Novgorod, comme le suggère son aquarelle Les Russes, scènes de la foire de Nijni Novgorod, 1831 (ayant fi guré à la vente Arno Winterberg, Samedi, 16 avril 1994, lot 619). Fondée au XVIe siècle à proximité du monastère de St Macaire non loin de la ville de Nijnii Novgorod (d’où son nom « Makarievskaya »), puis transférée en 1817 dans la ville même de Nijni Novgorod, cette foire est devenue un point stratégique de commerce international, grâce à son emplacement sur la Volga, la principale artère navale russe.

— 62 — Starovoytova Y. Anastasia. A painting of Georg Opitz

Après l’étude du sujet du tableau monumental de Georg Opitz, mis en vente en France, nous pouvons dire, en toute certitude, qu’il représente la foire de Nijni Novgorod, portant aussi le nom de Makarievskaya. Au premier plan du tableau, rassemblés autour du personnage central en uniforme, se groupent les gens vêtus de costumes nationaux de peuples vivant en Russie. Derrière les personnages du premier plan nous apercevons des pavillons en bois, parmi lesquels, à gauche, Gostinny Dvor (l’Hôtel principal), surmonté du drapeau russe. Sur le panneau au-dessus de la porte d’entrée figure une inscription imitant des lettres cyrilliques. Différentes festivités animent la foire; nous y voyons des moujiks qui dansent, une taverne, autour de laquelle sont groupés des paysans en costumes nationaux, un chapiteau et des balançoires. A l’arrière plan du tableau Opitz peint, pourtant de manière grotesque, un ensemble de cathédrales de différentes confessions, dominées par une cathédrale orthodoxe à cinq coupoles, qui laisse deviner qu’Opitz voulait placer au centre la cathédrale Saint Sauveur, l’œuvre de l’architecte français Auguste Montferrand commandé par l’Etat pour la ville de Nijni Novgorod, encore en échafaudages dans les années 1830. Plusieurs détails laissent penser que ce tableau a été commandé à l’artiste. Le peintre attire notre attention sur l’homme en uniforme au premier plan, qui n’est personne d’autre que l’empereur Nicolas Ier (1825-1855) de Russie. Le sujet du tableau est donc le souvenir de la visite de la foire, en 1836, par l’empereur russe. Les costumes minutieusement peints des personnages du premier plan, ainsi que leurs poses figées, le caractère imaginaire de l’architecture, laissent supposer que le peintre se servait de sources diverses pour exécuter ce tableau. Notamment, il se serait servi de gravures de « types russes » si répandues dans la première moitié du XIXe siècle, de projets d’architectes pour l’architecture de l’arrière plan, ainsi que de portraits officiels de l’empereur Nicolas Ier, notamment de ceux exécutés par le peintre allemand à la cour russe, F. Krüger. L’idée centrale du tableau de Georg Emmanuel Opitz était de donner l’image de l’empereur de la Russie en gloire, entouré des peuples habitant le territoire de son empire. Nous y voyons des personnages représentant différentes nations et vêtus de leurs costumes nationaux, offrant à Nicolas Ier les fruits de leur pays. Ainsi, à la droite du tsar en uniforme de général,

— 63 — Starovoytova Y. Anastasia. A painting of Georg Opitz

un prince Tcherkesse, habillé en chevalier de guerre, lui montre avec fierté la cicindèle du Caucase. De gauche à droite, autour du tsar, se tiennent debout une femme Tchouvache en robe rouge et blanche et en haute coiffe, ainsi qu’une femme Mordvine. Plus loin, en robe multicolore et en haute coiffe ornée, une jeune fille Kalmouke cache derrière elle une femme avec un anneau dans le nez en habit de femme mariée Kalmouke. A gauche du tsar, l’homme qui se dirige vers le spectateur est habillé en cosaque ukrainien. Derrière lui, à cheval, les habitants du Caucase, Ingouches et Tcherkesses, se tournent vers les négociants occidentaux. La partie gauche du tableau présente une scène pittoresque de repos d’hommes et de femmes Tatars, qui fument rassemblés autour du feu. Nous avons pu retrouver des lithographies anglaises 1 dont Opitz se servait pour peindre les costumes de ceux qui font un demi-cercle autour de Nicolas Ier. Publiées en 1803 par E. Harding, Pall Mall, elles ne portent pas de signature de l’artiste, mais elles portent des inscriptions qui nous ont permis de reconnaître les nationalités qui figurent sur le tableau et de leur attribuer les costumes tels qu’ils étaient vus au début du XIXe siècle. Ces lithographies constituent la tradition de gravures de « types russes », qui illustraient les costumes de nombreux peuples de Russie. Johann Gotleib Georgy devint le premier qui lança la mode sur les « types russes » en gravures. Ethnographe et explorateur allemand, Georgy effectua, sous le règne de Catherine II, un voyage en Russie et publia, en 1774, la Description de toutes les nations de l’Empire Russe où l’on expose leurs mœurs, religions, usages, habitations, habillements et autres particularités2, richement illustrée de gravures d’après les croquis faits par l’ethnographe et ses compagnons. Ce type d’étude est passé en mode. Le peintre français Jean-Baptiste Leprince effectue une série de scènes pittoresques de la vie quotidienne des paysans russes. Plus tard, au tout début du XIXe siècle, un peintre anglais John Augustus Atkinson, reprenant l’idée de Georgy, passa plusieurs années en Russie et exécuta un nombre de tableaux sur la Russie, ainsi que les portraits de l’empereur et de ses courtisans, et publia, en 1803, A Picturesque representation of the Manners, Customs and Amusements of the Russians. 3 Quant à foire annuelle de Nijni Novgorod, elle devint, dès sa création, l’évènement de grande importance pour le commerce de la Russie.

— 64 — Starovoytova Y. Anastasia. A painting of Georg Opitz

Il n’est pas étonnant qu’après avoir visité ce lieu, Opitz se tourna vers ce sujet. Au XIXe siècle elle accueillait entre 150 et 200 mille visiteurs et marchands, tandis que la ville de Nijni Novgorod abritait 18 mille habitants. L’inauguration de la foire, qui se déroulait en juillet et août de chaque année, est devenue un évènement solennel, présidé par le gouverneur et la noblesse de la ville. La foire attirait les marchands de toute la Russie, de l’Asie et de l’Europe Occidentale et avait pris en quelques décennies une envergure internationale. En quelques chiffres, en 1817, son produit de marchandise s’estimait à 24,1 millions de roubles; il a doublé en 1840, et en 1850 il s’élevait à 56 millions. Grâce à sa foire, Nijni Novgorod a obtenu le titre de capitale du commerce de l’Etat et le surnom « la bourse de Russie ». Au vu d’une croissance aussi rapide et du nombre de visiteurs qui ne cessait d’augmenter, il fallait penser à l’aménagement du territoire qu’elle occupait. En 1817, selon l’ordre du tsar Alexandre Ier, l’aménagement de la foire est devenu une affaire de prestige de l’Etat russe. C’est Augustin Bétancourt, l’ingénieur français à la cour russe qui se charge du projet de développement et d’aménagement de la foire. Lui-même choisit son emplacement sur la flèche de la Volga et du fleuve Oka, à l’endroit où ces deux fleuves fusionnent. Nous voyons cette flèche en haut à droite du tableau. Cet emplacement assurait, selon l’ingénieur français, « toutes les commodités du transport de marchandises ». Vers 1825, le projet de l’ensemble architectural n’était toujours pas approuvé. La foire se déroulait donc dans des pavillons temporaires en bois, comme nous voyons sur le tableau. Betancourt confia la construction de pavillons en pierre, ainsi que le projet de cathédrale qui devait dominer et rassembler tout l’ensemble, à son compatriote, l’architecte français Auguste Montferrand, qui est devenu célèbre en Russie grâce à ses constructions à Moscou (Le Manège, en 1817) et à Saint-Pétersbourg (La cathédrale Saint Isaac, début de construction en 1818). Montferrand a conçu deux projets semblables pour la cathédrale de Saint-Pétersbourg et celle de Nijni Novgorod. Ces cathédrales ont été surmontées de cinq coupoles et avaient un portique avec un rang de colonnes sur la façade. Si nous regardons de près le tableau de Opitz, nous apercevons, malgré les grotesques « bulbes » couronnant la cathédrale, un portique avec

— 65 — Starovoytova Y. Anastasia. A painting of Georg Opitz

des colonnes classiques. Ce petit détail confirme que l’artiste voulait représenter ici l’œuvre de Montferrand, qu’il connaissait probablement dans le projet et qu’il a vue au moment de sa construction. Après 1825, un haut clocher se joignit à la cathédrale Saint-Sauveur, puis plus tard une mosquée et une église arménienne étaient construites à proximité de la cathédrale. En comparant des gravures du XIXe siècle représentant l’ensemble de la foire avec ses bâtiments et églises avec les constructions de l’arrière plan peintes par Opitz, nous pouvons voir que l’artiste allemand voulait peindre le paysage avec beaucoup de précision. La foire qui acquit, autour des années 1830, une telle importance pour le marché russe, que l’aristocratie pétersbourgeoise y avait fait construire des palais pour assister à l’évènement. Tels sont les Golitsine et les Stroganoff, possesseurs de mines de fer et de métaux précieux et semi-précieux qu’ils vendaient ici même. La foire était alors devenue un lieu qui rassemblait en juillet et août la haute société russe. En 1836, selon l’ordre de Nicolas Ier, les travaux d’aménagement de la foire, qui ne cessait de grandir et qui occupait alors un territoire de 500 mille m2, ont été repris. Cette même année le tsar envisageait de visiter la foire de Nijni Novgorod. La visite de l’empereur est devenue un évènement important dans l’histoire de la foire. Aucun autre monarque russe, apparemment, n’avait daigné visiter la foire. Cet évènement même est devenu le sujet du tableau de Georges Opitz qui nous parait passionnant à différents égards. D’une part il interprète les thèmes du folklore russe, ainsi que de l’image des peuples de la Russie qu’avait les européens; d’autre part il met au premier plan l’importance de la foire de Nijni Novgorod en évoquant un épisode de l’histoire peu connu, celui de l’arrivée à la foire de Nicolas Ier.

ENDNOTES 1 Fonds de donations de la Bibliothèques des Arts décoratifs, à Paris. 2 Description de toutes les nations de l’Empire Russe ou l’on expose leurs mœurs, religions, usages, habitations, habillements et autres particularités, Spb., 1776. 3 A Picturesque representation of the Manners, Customs and Amusements of the Russians.

— 66 — Victor G. Vlasov. Italianisms as Artistic Tropes in Architecture of Saint Petersburg

Victor G. Vlasov Doctor of Arts Professor of St.Petersburg State University [email protected] St. Petersburg, Russia ITALIANISMS AS ARTISTIC TROPES IN ARCHITECTURE OF SAINT PETERSBURG

Summary: The article considers the problem of interpretation of the motives of classic Italian architecture and incorporating them into the classicistic architecture of St. Petersburg. This topic is analyzed using the theory of artistic tropes: semantic transfer values from one historical and cultural context to another. Outlines methods and techniques for building typological model similar transfers. To create such a model the author proposes to use categories and terms of aesthetics of postmodernism. According to the latest principles of typological analyzes postmodern individual projects St. Petersburg buildings of the 2000s. Keywords: architecture, composition, italianisms, motif, postmodernism, style, typology, tropos, formbuilding.

Throughout the history of Russian architecture, concepts such as “Italianisms”, “Hollandisms”, “Anglicisms” and “Germanisms” have been used. They all reveal the sources of borrowing, imitation, replication, stylisation and renovation in the forms of classic architecture in the past. Such a theme is particularly relevant for the architecture of Saint Petersburg. One of the youngest cities in Russia originated in 1703, on the edge of the country and at same times on the border of Europe’s cultural ecumene, during the “wonderful blending of all nations”.1 To this day it is fascinating that many quarters of Florence, built in the 18th and 19th centuries, are quite similar, both overall and in architectural details, with constructions in Petersburg classicism of that time. In many cases, there was no direct contact of influence between

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Italian and Russian masters. The historical ties of Russian and Italian architecture are actually much more complex and multifaceted. St. Petersburg has a marginal, off-centre position compared to the historical centers of classical European culture. This historical and cultural detachment in time and space specified its collectiveness — one of the main stylistic features of the city and, in a broader sense, all Russian classicism architecture. By the middle of the 18th century — a time of active construction in St. Petersburg — Western European countries had already mastered all the major artistic styles of the post renaissance era — Classicism, Baroque, Rococo. Therefore, the new Russian architecture, as well as other arts, was doomed to consult various sources. What is more, they consulted not from the main centers of birth of these styles but, due to the remoteness, through the secondary and usually mixed, eclectic variants of the different styles, which were popular in the Northern and Eastern Europe — Northern Germany, Denmark, East Prussia, Bohemia and Poland. The further away from Rome, the more eclectic it was. The main law of the post renaissance development of the European art had been working in Russia as well. Such an intermixture (Lat. mixtum compositum) was not homogeneous, it was evolving over time. A transition from one stylistic trend to another and their parallel development at different stages created a complex picture — a set of stylistic metastructures which had no direct analogies in the Western European architecture of that time. This was enhanced by both the consolidation and fusing of the styles. “In Russia many stages that were sequentially passed by other European nations, often turned out to be fused, conjoint… Sometimes unexpected combinations of rather diverse phenomena appeared”, writes N. Kovalenskaya.2 B. Whipper specified this statement in his articles in 1940s: “Apparently it is more correct to imagine the picture of the development of the artistic outlook in Russia in the sense that Russian art, catching up with Europe at an increasing pace, simultaneously solved the problems of the previous stages of development, though sometimes, on the contrary, it unexpectedly leaped ahead of Europe, leaving the

— 68 — Victor G. Vlasov. Italianisms as Artistic Tropes in Architecture of Saint Petersburg

seemingly natural development, and combining on the same stage of evolution advanced features with backward elements, as well as with deeply conservative traditions”.3 D. Sarabyanov named Russian culture “thrice born”, meaning the fundamental turning points of the world view: the Christianization in the 10th century, Peter the Great’s reforms at the beginning of the 18th century, the appearance of a “different art” in the middle of the 20th century. In addition, in Russia, as a result of some “delays and later development” “there were two baroque periods instead of one and one classicism period instead of two”.4 In all cases there was a focus on the West, and not on the East. Even the Christianization through Byzantium meant the succession from Roman Hellenistic culture. It is significant that the enthusiasm for the “Eastern influences and styles” had a superficial, episodic character during all the stages of the Russian art development and showed itself to a lesser extent than similar trends in the culture of Western Europe. Thus, typically Russian delays and bindings of artistic trends, movements and styles can explain not only discontinuity, unevenness of development, but also a “multipartite” or program eclecticism, as one of the main features of Russian art, particularly of the 18–19th centuries. The components of such multi-compound development had only Western European origin or were transformed by the influence of Western European autochthonous motifs. Therefore, the architecture of Russian classicism in each particular case can be viewed as a peculiarly interpreted summary –a compendium (Lat. compendium — “shortening, collection”) of the Western achievements that can be regarded as “typically Russian”, including at the level of individual artists’ styles. The order of architecture played an important unifying role in this process. Despite the differences of some order forms, it represented a historical connection of Russian architecture (primarily architecture of St. Petersburg) with the classical heritage of Europe — the culture of Greece and Rome, and thus received a semantic and symbolic meaning. That order system unites the “Petersburg style” buildings, built at various times and in different historical styles, into a single ensemble. The order details become Italianisms in Russian architecture not just

— 69 — Victor G. Vlasov. Italianisms as Artistic Tropes in Architecture of Saint Petersburg

because the masters of Russian classicism were in many cases Italians. The transference of prototypes into a new spatial and historical context intensified not their iconographic but iconological value. Secondary semantic meanings became more important than external similarities. The principle of the metamorphosis of harmonization into a composition is the main structural principle of the architectonic shaping, which allows the realisation of the architect’s overall design, according to the Vitruvian triad “Utility, Strength, Beauty” or, in modern interpretation, “Function, Form, Quality.” This is the way the change from designing to imaginative thinking goes. This change is performed with the help of tropes — method of transferring the meaning from one subject to another (Greek tropos — “a turn”), from the constructive and functional building foundation to the artistic and figurative integrity in this case. In literature, trope is a lexical structure, a result of transferring a meaning of one word to another. This gives rise to some secondary meanings, connections, relations which are absent between these concepts in reality. Usually, this structure is a two-part phrase in which one part has the literal sense, and the other has a figurative sense. Tropes are designed to intensify the imagery and the artistic expression of speech. V. Shklovsky believes that the use of lexical tropes “moves things away from an automatism of perception” and calls this phenomenon “estrangement”. In his opinion the purpose of art is “to give a feeling of an object as a vision and not as recognition”.5 There is no standard classification of tropes. M. Gasparov considered tropes as a variety of stylistic figures — “figures of rethinking”. Most researchers identify three major artistic tropes: metaphor, metonymy and synecdoche. Nevertheless, it is necessary to distinguish figures of speech based on a syntactic structure of a sentence and to distinguish tropes as expressive means of composition. The theory of artistic tropes develops in postmodern aesthetics. French philosopher Michel Foucault derived four types of similarity categories (assimilation of things) in his book “Words and Things” (1966): convenientia, rivalry (aversion), analogy, sympathy. They make up pairs. Sympathy is the main and “the most dangerous” of all —

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it sets all things in the world in motion, bringing together the most distant ones and depriving them of their individuality. Antipathy prevents this, saving the character of things. Interaction between the members of these connections gives rise to all forms of similarities and differences: analogy, identity, comparison, assimilation…6 The process of perception and consumption of things, including art and design products is called “valuation”, according to Jean Baudrillard. This idea was first suggested by Ferdinand de Saussure — a Swiss philologist, the founder of structural linguistics: the primary functionality of an object will certainly turn into a new semantic value, which changes the functional structure of the object. The object loses functional identity in this process and becomes a sign (simulacrum), and the sign becomes an object.7 According to Heidegger, man looks for support in life “by continuation of himself in things”, creating “an essence of being among the space”.8 The object being replaced by a sign is perceived by content, and the replacing element — by expression. The metaphorical imagery is called connotation in this system. According to M. Bakhtin, there is practically no author in such situation, but his presence is felt “purely as the depicting origin”. The composition itself becomes the depicted origin. In the broadest sense, one should understand the artistic trope as a way of thinking, establishing new, previously missing in the nature, relations between the phenomena of reality. Architectural composition as a way of artistic and creative thinking is also seen in establishment of new degree relations between the building structure and the visually perceived form. This is where the importance of the theory of tropes in theory, practice and methodology of architectural creativity originates from. The design material in the process of transformation into an architectonic form undergoes a series of significant changes. Referring to the history and practice of architecture, it can be seen how natural forms help an architect to create certain associations — this is the first level of creative imagination, or a heuristic formation of a design idea. In this case, assimilation of form is created; it is based on a simple trope — comparison, a method of transferring the meaning. With the help of this method the artistic value of different events (unrelated to

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each other in everyday life) is clarified and intensified. The compared phenomena do not change and do not form a new image; they remain separate unlike more complex tropes. The Metaphor theory in Russian Architectural History was developed by V. Markuzon at the beginning of the 20th century. He believed that an association represents the first level of creative imagination and the forming of design ideas. In this case, a form of assimilation is created (zoomorphism, anthropomorphism). In a metaphor, unlike in an association, the transformation of the original motive can be observed, but the compared phenomena do not change and do not form a new image. Markuzon believed that lotus-like columns of the ancient Egyptian temples represent only comparison (biomorfism), but the entasis of the ancient Greek Doric Order (thickening a bit below the middle of a stem) is a metaphor (figurative transfer of meanings), because it expresses the force of the carrying structure not directly but abstractly, figuratively. Accordingly, any architectural order can be regarded as a metaphor.9 The set of metaphorical techniques was called “the poetics of architectural language” by V. Markuzon. However, metaphorical thinking goes beyond the traditional understanding of an art trope as an order system in architecture in the latest architectural design. The metaphorical nature of the artistic language extends to the use of any structures, forms, technology and materials. “In design”, according to E. Zherdev, “the types and uses of metaphors are determined primarily by the typologies of figurative designations of world’s phenomena on the subject of design and stylistic methods of the comparison of metaphorical representations of the world’s phenomena with a utilitarian standpoint”.10 In such a way, the metaphorical aspect of creative thinking is coded by composite categories and is converted to an even higher level of thinking through the form of: metonymy (renaming), sinekdohy (morphogenesis on the principle of “a part as the whole”) and then, in some cases, through a number of methods to allegory and symbols. According to Umberto Eco, a metaphor and metonymy in imaginative thinking are so important, that all other tropes can be reduced to these two concepts. At the same time, in each

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metaphor there is a “chain of metonyms”, and it is this that creates “multiple interpretations… metonymic relationships — relationships of contiguity”.11 The imaginative transformation of the original motif presents itself as a metamorphosis, such as images of male and female figures (Atlant and Caryatid) as supports. Metaphorical thinking produces many other “figurative designations”: parallelism, epithet (application, attachment), paraphrase (allegory, alerting), antithesis (contradictory juxtaposition), oxymoron (paradoxical juxtaposition) and catachresis (burlesque and contradictory juxtaposition). According to the new state of metaphor of XX and XXI century architecture, the order system is transformed as well. For this reason, one should not be limited to the narrow sense of the word “Italianisms” when studying the historical interaction of Russian and Western European architecture, particularly the architectural traditions of Italy and Russia. A systemic approach capable of accepting multiple variants is needed. The formation of design ideas in the architect’s creative process takes place on several structurally interconnected levels. The architectonic form, including the classical order, must be examined as a process of the formation of stable links between various structural plans. With some degree of conditionality one can identify three main plans, and accordingly three levels of structural analysis of compositional integrity: a heuristic level of forming of design ideas, a level of aesthetic morphogenesis (the harmonisation of form) and the level of artistic and imaginative thinking. The variety of ways that the motifs of classical architecture can be interpreted allows one to make a rough typology of Italianisms as artistic tropes. The basis of such a typology should be put on a succession of stages of development of Russian architecture (pre- style, manneristic-baroque, eclectic or post-style), as well as methods corresponding to these stages and techniques of morphogenesis, and methods of interpretation of original themes, motifs and elements. Among the types of relationships of different cultures’ languages the ones commonly referred to are: – Unilateral action – Copying, citation or replication of classic designs

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– Imitation – A compilation of individual elements – Recreation of archetypes of classical compositions – Styling of motifs – Holistic historical pastiche – Reconstruction (rebuilding) of an original prototype – A creatively fruitful interchange – Creation of innovative compositions associated with an original compositional archetype. The French structuralist Gérard Genette formulated five types of “interactions of texts”: intertextuality as a co-presence in one text of two or more texts (quotations, allusions, plagiarism); paratextuality as the ratio (“framing”) of the text to its original version; metatextuality as the commenting or criticising link of the former text; and architextuality as the genre (subordinate) link between the texts. Genette divides the main classes of intertextuality into sub-classes and traces their links and relationships.12 To some extent, this system can be used to construct a typology of interpretations of classical themes and motifs in architecture. The study of compositional possibilities of metaphorical thinking in the context of the artist’s mastery of the architectonic form leads to the discovery of correspondences of stylistic figures and specific tools/ methods and results / qualities of the process of morphogenesis. For this reason many stylistic figures and tropes, used in different kinds of art, can be divided into three groups, respective to methodological levels in morphogenesis in visual arts and architecture: 1. Stylistic figures: – parallelism (the comparison of similar elements in the form) – repetition (metrical or rhythmical) – inversion (mirror-image) – citation (reproduction of a selected motif) – ellipsis (passing what is expected) – parcelling (the division of the original motif into parts) – hyperbole (maximisation, expressive exaggeration) – litotes (miniaturisation, deliberate understatement)

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2. Stylistic devices: – alliteration (repetition of an element for enhancement or amplification) – assonance (the co-ordination of contours and silhouettes) – consonance (the co-ordination of tone and colour) – dissonance (a mismatch of tones) – onomatopoeia (imitation of details) – anaphora (the repetition of initial elements) – epiphora (the repetition of closing elements) 3. Morphological techniques: – transposition (direct transposition) – anacoluthon (the deliberate mismatch of parts) – aposiopesis (visual pause between adjacent elements) – antonomasia (renaming) – metamorphosis (a transformation of a function) – parallelism (the visual analogy of forms) – metonymy (renaming by an external similarity) – epithet (the transposition of decorative properties of colour, light and texture from one form to another) – paraphrasing (replacement, likening one form to another) – antithesis (contrast and nuance) – oxymoron (connecting the un-connectable, violation of proportions or scale) – catachresis (deformation) In the modern architecture of St. Petersburg of recent years several “Italianising trends” manifested themselves. They can be interpreted according to the theory of tropes. For example, the type of replication of Italian architecture with eclectic elements includes the hotel building on a square near the Aleksandrinsky Theatre, constructed from 2002 to 2008 in the “Mediterranean style”. Authors of the project relied on the powerful context of the classic ensemble, created by Carlo Rossi, but “could not follow the path of creative interpretation of his architecture”.13 The formation of the architectural representation of the hotel was influenced by the classical works of L. B. Alberti; in particular, the interpretation of the order on the façade of the Palazzo Rucellai, as if

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superimposed on the surface of the wall in combination with Venetian windows. The similarity with Venetian palazzo and the Palazzo Barberini in Rome is obvious. One can also see an analogy with the motif of a vertically elongated “French window” with its arched top (portefenêtre in French, lit. door-window). After the erection of the new building, this corner of the old square, together with the adjacent buildings of different times, began to resemble an exhibition of the history of architectural styles. The other stylistic trend of St. Petersburg postmodernism is termed “formalised historicism”, or the “postmodernist variant of historicism”. It is based on the use of certain “iconic” elements in classical architecture on the facades of buildings, which essentially is a traditional citation in the newest of historical conditions. In the St. Petersburg of 20th and 21st centuries, eclecticism is successfully combined with neoclassicism: the symmetry and triform of facades, towers on the corners of buildings, profiled cornices, vertical windows, rustication, stone plinths, etc. Many elements, such as window frames, are repeated in various modern projects. “St. Petersburg is associated primarily with either pre-Roman or post-Roman tradition, appealing to Ancient Greek antiquity or the Renaissance. We however,” says architect M. Mamoshin, “are actively trying to broaden this historic arsenal. This approach is inherently theatrical, but what other city is as appropriate for this as St. Petersburg!”.14 The workshop of M. Mamoshin has undertaken a project of the restoration of the “Novotel” hotel in the center of St. Petersburg, around Mayakovskaya street. The project envisages the creation of a pedestrian zone with the restoration of Italian gardens previously located in this area. The ideas of the project dates back to classical Italian architecture — from the Colosseum to the early Renaissance “View of Urbino” of Piero della Francesca and the “metaphysical” cityscapes of J. de Chirico. The general style of the building is similar to the opuses of R. Bofill in France — a combinatorial set of classic attributes: the tower, the arch, the colonnade. The architect uses these elements to create a picture of an imaginary city. It is not just a postmodern collage, but a system of artistic tropes that allows the combination of “basic” forms with modern materials and construction technologies. However, the “Roman

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architecture” of Mamoshin, included in the context of an ordinary building in St. Petersburg, seemingly kindred in spirit, is alien in this environment. After all, Russian classicism and St. Petersburg’s empire style are not identical to Italian classics, which is also not uniform. The “Novotel” project, as well as other buildings of “new classicism” in St. Petersburg, is a decoration in a “Roman-style” with a designer “filling”. “Italianisms” only have a semantic meaning; they are labelled as “designer clips”: The Colosseum — a round, three-tiered arcade, a tower — a multilevel cylinder, an arch — a “bridge” spanning a pedestrian street. No form is totally complete. An arch is intersected by a three-tiered glass walkway. The Colosseum looks like an arena from one side only. Only the constructions hidden from the observer have any functional meaning, and the glass, the stone arches and columns — they’re only a framing, a packaging, or rather, a skilled design for advertising. The content of the new architecture changes, but radically new methods of expression do not exist, and this is what enhances the compositional contradictions. The systemisation and typology of Italianisms in classical and modern architecture of St. Petersburg, with the help of the theory of artistic tropes, will allow a fairly complete picture of “Italian-Russian” style to be created, and will at least at the level of theoretical reflection allow the overcoming of shallow eclecticism.

ENDNOTES 1 Batushkov, K. N., 1977. Essays in verse and prose. Moscow, pp. 73–74. 2 Kovalenskaya, N. N., 1940. History of Russian Art of the XVIII century. Moscow, p. 5. 3 Whipper, B. R., 1978. Russian Baroque architecture. Moscow, p. 10. 4 Sarabyanov, D.V., 2002. “Belated thoughts on the complex history Russian art”, Iskusstvoznanie. no.1, pp. 69–70. 5 Shklovsky, V. B. Art as Device [electronic resource]. — Mode of access: http:// transformations.russian-literature.com/node/15 (date treatment: 11.05.13). 6 Foucault, M., 1994. Words and Things. Archaeology Humanities. p. 60–62. 7 Baudrillard, J., 1995. System of things. Moscow, p. 95. 8 Heidegger, M., 1993. Being and Time: Articles and Speeches. Moscow. pp. 253–254.

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9 Markuzon, V. F. 1939. “Metaphors and Similes in the Architecture”, Architecture of the USSR, no. 5, pp. 57–59. 10 Zherdev, E.V., 2012. Metaphor in Design. Moscow. p.89. 11 Eco, U. 2005. The role of the reader: Studies in Semiotics text. Moscow. pp.117–121. 12 Genette, G. 1982. Palimpsestes: la literature au seconde degrée. Paris. 13 Kurbatov, J. 1997. “Laws of formation of the modern language architecture Petersburg”, Read Petersburg — 97, Saint Petersburg, p. 276. 14 Michael Mamoshin “Architecture should Narrative in his rock version”, Architectural Journal URS: http://archvestnik.ru/ru/magazine/908 (Available date 03.04.2007)

REFERENCES 1. Arslanov, V.G. 2005. Western European Art History of the XX century. Moscow, Academic Project. 2. Vlasov, V.G. 2012. Art of Russia in Field of Eurasia. in 3 vols, St. Petersburg. 3. Gabrichevsky, A.G. 2002. Morphology of Art. Moscow. 4. Jenks, Ch. 1985. Language Architecture of Postmodernism. Moscow. 5. Zavarihin, S. P. 2010. Architecture of the first half of the twentieth Century. Moscow. 6. Zedlmayr, H. 1999. Art and Truth. Moscow. 7. Semper, G. 1970. Practical Aesthetics. Moscow. 8. Kagan, M. S. 1991. System approach and the Humanities: Selected articles. Leningrad, Leningrad State University. 9. Kagan, M. S. 1997. Aesthetics as a philosophical Science. St. Petersburg. 10. Nekrasov, A. I. 1994. Theory of Architecture. Moscow. 11. Panofsky, E. 2009. Studies in Iconology. St. Petersburg. 12. Rudnev, V. P. 1997. Dictionary Culture of the XX century. Moscow. 13. Savchenko, M. R. 2004. Architecture as Science: Applied research Methodology. Moscow.

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Kseniya I. Novokhatko Art Historian Project Director ICOM Russia [email protected] Russia, Moscow LITERATURE MEMORIAL MUSEUMS AND EXHIBITIONS IN RUSSIA IN 1920s-1989: EXHIBITION DESIGN CONCEPTS

Summary: The topic of the article — the chronological analyses of types of the Russian exhibition design formation. Examples are concerning literature and memorial displays from the period on the first Literature museum exhibitions in 1920s to the Mayakovskiy Museum creation in 1989. The main problem of the exhibition design research — creation of the “artist laboratory”, showing artist’s way of thinking, feeling and writing, work with memorials object not to repeat or reconstruct the reality, but to tell the story of spirit. Very important is to notice links between exhibition design methodology and arts development process in general. Keywords: exhibition, museum, art strategy, method, Rosenblum, Museum design concepts, Literature museums.

Literary museums may be divided provisionally into three basic types: historical, monographic, and memorial. The last category includes house-museums, estates, and memorial apartments and studies. Their task is to preserve and present the authentic surroundings of the author. Monographic literary exhibitions also often include “memorial areas,” but the accent is on the analysis of creative heritage. Historical literary museums are dedicated to the general process of literature development in its historical context. The development of literary museums originated from an effort to preserve the memory of a person, by keeping the surroundings and atmosphere of his house or work space untouched, in other words,

— 79 — Kseniya I. Novokhatko. Literature Memorial Museums and Exhibitions in Russia in 1920s-1989 from the memorial museum. Its emergence is usually connected with the existence of a memorial space — apartment, house, street, or city, related to the person or event, and with permanent associations with them. For entire generations the concepts of Moyka, Mikhailovskoe, or the Arbat are associated with Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, just as the Garden Ring — with Mikhail Bulgakov, the city of Tarusa — with Marina Tsvetaeva, St. Petersburg — with Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Yasnaya Polyana — with Leo Tolstoy. The memorial character of an exhibition is ensured by the authenticity of the place, the space, the house, or the objects (manuscripts or items of daily life). The possibility to preserve the authenticity of all these factors is very rare, only in the case of museolization immediately after the event or the life of the author. This was the case, for example, with Yasnaya Polyana, and, if speaking about foreign authors, with the Goethe House in Weimar and the Brecht Apartment in Berlin. More often, a museum faces a necessity of recreating the surroundings, using only several, and sometimes even only one of the enumerated factors — several objects or the authentic place, sometimes that being only a neighborhood or even an entire city. The most noteworthy example of this idea is the State Pushkin Museum, located in a building that has no relation to the life of the poet. Alexander Zinovievich Krain, the first director of the State Pushkin Museum, without concealing his sadness about the fact that the town mansion of the Khrushchev-Seleznev family “is not memorial and is not directly related to Pushkin’s staying there”, remarks that “… around it, on Prechistenka street, … there are quite many addresses which Pushkin used to visit…” Moreover, the architecture of the mansion and its interior arrangement give us a very precise idea of the atmosphere of that epoch, of the time of the poet’s life in Moscow. One should not forget that the “semantics” of the building, which includes historical, culturological and aesthetic information, always directly influences the future character of the museum communication. The founders of the Pushkin Museum used the memorial potential of the historic building. Returning to the types of literary museums, one must note that the development of exhibition design concepts throughout the history of literary museums has always been determined by various proportions

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and interpretations of the two main components — the monographic and the memorial one. They can exist in parallel or interpenetrate. And whereas the history of literary museums began with an effort to fully preserve the memorial surroundings, later a need arose to add scholarly commentary and an artistic interpretation. It was provoked not only by a change in artistic conceptions in general, but also, first of all, by the impossibility to preserve or recreate the original memorial environment. Moreover, any “self-sufficient” memorial object eventually requires an interpretation and a scholarly and exhibition commentary revealing its value and meaning. “Establishing a museum in the house where a person lived demands the organization of the exhibition space on a model of a living environment. Shifting away from this model must have a sufficiently well-grounded argument: if the surroundings fail to show the person’s inner world, if there is no documentary record to carry out the reconstruction, etc.” 1 The memorial environment can be reconstructed according to memoirs, photographs, written notes, and other documents and indirect materials, but museums do not always take this approach. Exhibition design strategies of literary museums include not only opportunities to recreate the memorial surroundings, but also various approaches to the shaping of a new artistic environment which aim is to recreate the history of the spirit and the creative environment of a writer or a poet. Let us consider the progressive development of exhibition design strategies using the example of keynote exhibitions created by Russian literary museums beginning from the 1920s. The Literary museum of the Lenin Library, established in 1923 and based on the A. P. Chekhov Museum, originally displayed the collected objects. But even after first exhibitions, according to the employee of the Literary Museum and author of an article about the history of its exhibition activities, K. Vinogradova, “visitors … were not satisfied with the simple viewing of the objects and demanded their historical and cultural interpretation.” 2 A demand for commentary and interpretation appeared, and thus the necessity for scholarly research of the material, its evaluation, and artistic interpretation and demonstration.

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By that time, two types of exhibitions had been well developed and widely spread — the collection type and the so-called “ensemble” or “group” type. They both primarily concerned themselves with the demonstration of the original, memorial object. But whereas in the first case the object was placed among other similar objects, in the second case objects were grouped to form thematic or functional groups, which allowed the reestablishment of their connections with each other by not only indicating their function, but also by recreating their emotional and expressive environment. Both methods turned out to be not quite valid for the new tasks of literary museums, which demanded not only such recreation, but also interpretation and commentary. At the turn of the 1920s, the group approach was used for demonstration of everyday life of merchants and nobility to a new post-revolutionary audience. Everyday life exhibitions were popular, but they bore no relation to specific persons. In the context of literary museums, a memorial character of an exhibition did not seem informative enough to visitors. It became necessary to show the author’s literary works as a cultural phenomenon, to explain to the audience what the place of this or that author in the national culture was, and to reveal his significance and singularity. As part of an exhibition about A. P. Chekhov in 1924, a special room was devoted to the writer’s contemporaries, which created a good historical and social background. The writer’s works, however, were still presented as mere facts of his biography, but not as “treasuries” of artistic imagery and associations. By that time, a search for more substantive exhibition design strategies was also underway and the first attempts were made to introduce into the exhibition a scholarly, monographic component. For the “Creative Career of Gorky” exhibition (1928), the consultant, professor M. R. Rybinkova “developed and included into the exhibition a synchronistic table that showed Gorky’s literary works in relation to the most important literary phenomena of his time.” 3 An important step in the search for methods of recreating an author’s “creative laboratory” was the exhibition devoted to Chekhov in 1929. In one of the rooms, the writer’s drafts with his corrections were displayed. The original pages

— 82 — Kseniya I. Novokhatko. Literature Memorial Museums and Exhibitions in Russia in 1920s-1989 were complemented by their enlarged copies and transcript. As a cultural and historical background, the thematic group “A Workman’s Library” was also added there, which showed very vividly readers’ interests of the 1900s. At the Chekhov exhibition in 1935, specimens of the writer’s manuscripts occupied the central place in the exhibition room. In the middle of the room, there was a big oval table with a pyramid-shaped showcase as long as the table. On the table, under the glass, manuscripts with the author’s corrections and pages from his notebooks were placed, and on the sides of the pyramid special notebooks containing Chekov’s sayings about writer’s craft and advice to a beginning author were hung. Around the table there were chairs for visitors, so that they could sit down and study the content of those notebooks. This experiment is mostly significant due to two factors: firstly, making the manuscripts, as a material of the writer’s “creative laboratory,” the focus of the exhibition, and secondly, permitting the visitor’s direct contact with them, which today we would call “interactivity.” At the same time, “the simple and austere design of the exhibition — canvas-covered light grey stands, white boards with texts — … reminded one of the interiors of the Moscow Art Theater…”,4 showing the exhibition authors’ aspiration to express the atmosphere of the theater the writer loved so much by means of an exhibition technique. The intention to highlight the part of the exhibition devoted to the writer’s “creative laboratory” not only by means of a separate stand or a coloured board, but also through a spatial and emotional device indicates the progress towards the figurative and spatial organization of the exhibition environment. A professional artist was invited to work on the exhibition at the Literary Museum for the first time in 1931, when a commemorative Vladimir Mayakovsky exhibition was being prepared. It was based on the exhibition “20 Years of V. V. Mayakovsky’s Work,” designed by the poet himself and given by him to the Literary Museum shortly before his death. Poems took the place of objects in the exhibition — they were written on pieces of matte glass and illuminated from within, whereas photographs and documents were enlarged and became posters, and posters, alternately, became objects. The stands shaped as inverted pyramids brought to mind graphic works of avant-guard

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artists. The paintings “The Volley of the Aurora” and “The Attack on the Winter Palace” with short comments created the social and historical background of that time. “The school of Lisitsky [whose followers worked on the Mayakovsky exhibition] developed new principles of exhibiting that included the organization of the single spatial image, active use of symbolic and dynamic constructions, photographic montage, three-dimensional posters, and a showcase which is itself an image.” 5 An important role in the choice of the artistic conception was played by Mayakovsky whose personality provoked artists to be experimental and to look for new means of expression. But a short time later the general conception of the country’s development changed, and such bold projects were halted for several decades. In 1932 the Central Committee of the Communist Party issued a decree about the reorganization of literary and artistic institutions, making them an effective factor in ideological propaganda. And in 1933–34 the All-Russia Central Executive Committee ordered the unhesitating liquidation of the “oversimplification” in the exhibitions that, according to the documents, was expressed “in excess photographs and poster materials in the exhibitions, lessening their scholarly and artistic, political and educational value”. The exhibition retained only what carried a concrete meaning, determined by the general ideology. All that did not fit in the clear line of the narrative or could evoke a controversial emotion had to disappear. A particular formula of exhibition strategy evolved that included chronological tables of the writer’s life and work, the writer’s determined and fixed place in the national and world literature, portraits of his contemporaries, and an abundance of illustrative material telling about the key moments in the writer’s life. A little later, a compulsory critical analysis of the main works was added. In 1936, the Literary Museum prepared an exhibition devoted to the centennial of N. A. Dobrolyubov’s birth. The exhibition included pieces of furniture and other memorial and typological objects from N. A. Nekrasov’s study in the editorial office of the Sovremenik (Contemporary) magazine, in the foundation of which Dobrolyubov took part. For the first time after several years of hegemony of the

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monographic approach a “memorial area” was included in the exhibition. A combination of the monographic commentary and a memorial component in such a proportion turned out to be so expressive and vivid, that this approach — the use of “memorial areas” in a literary exhibition — remained relevant for half a century. Traditionally, such an area or “corner” recreated the writer’s working environment and included both memorial and typological objects: a table, a chair, writing implements, pince-nez, pages of manuscripts, publications of that time, and photographs of the writer’s friends, family members, and closest colleagues. It also included objects that the writer could hardly have had on his writing desk, but which gave an idea of his interests and character (a dried flower, smoking accessories, his wife’s gloves, sheet music with his favourite musical piece, etc.). Four years later another anniversary exhibition took place; it was devoted to M. Ye. Saltykov-Shchedrin. Illustrations to the writer’s main works were ordered, which were exhibited alongside the drawings from albums of the 1840s – 50s. At that time the Literary Museum confronted the dearth of objects in its collection that could satisfy its scholarly conception, so it had to order new supplemental objects, thus becoming a major purchaser of art works. The method of the illustrated story of the writer’s life and work became the prevailing one, permitting not only the visual representation, clearly and logically, of the history of the writer’s life and his works, but also the creation of many exhibitions within a short period of time relying upon the general model. The crowning achievement of the method combining memorial objects and illustrative commentary and of the historical approach to the demonstration of a writer’s personality and to the interpretation of his heritage was the All-Union anniversary exhibition devoted to A. S. Pushkin at the State Historical Museum in 1937. In 1941, the artists Nikolai Suetin and Konstantin Rozhdestvensky, students of Kazimir Malevich, were invited to design the All-Union exhibition devoted to the M. Yu. Lermontov memorial centennial, 100 years after his death. They had gained recognition due to their brilliant design of the Soviet pavilion at the International Exhibition in Paris in 1937. The Lermontov exhibition opened in the summer of 1941

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and existed for only one day, as the war began. No photographs remained, but memoirs of the participants in the All-Union Lermontov Anniversary Committee and of the employees of the Literary and Historical Museums who were involved in the work have been preserved. Three rooms with a very high ceiling and high narrow windows were allocated for the exhibition. The designers covered the windows, leaving only the electric lighting. Splendid old chandeliers were acquired, and the surface of the flat walls was divided into sections with wooden frames put over them. Within those geometrical figures memorial objects and art works of the 18th and 19th centuries were placed in a way that showed them off to their great advantage. The designers decided to reject the traditional imitation of the style of the historical era in the design of the interiors or framing of the drawings and water-colours. Such a combination of historical objects and contemporary design was unusual for memorial exhibitions. They took advantage of the colour, for example, in the first room that was devoted to the poet’s childhood in Tarkhany light, sunny colours prevailed, conveying the atmosphere of the happy years he spent at his ancestral estate. In 1961, the State A. S. Pushkin Museum opened in Moscow, and its director Alexander Zinovievich Krein and a team of designers (B. Sokolov, Yu. Kertselli, O. Rabin, L. Kropivnitsky, N. Vechtomov, I. Shvabsky, and Eugeny Rosenblum) demonstrated a new design concept of the museum literary exhibition. This “imaginative” method was based on the concept of the “museum still-life”, when the authors created, by means of the object montage, a specific meaningful image of an event or character, or a hint of the memorial space. It is characteristic that the “still-life” was sometimes based on the aforementioned traditional museum “corner”, but it was done according to the laws of art, using art composition principles. The use of the artistic device of montage based on the associated perception of information speaks to the rapprochement of the museum exhibition with the principles of cinematography and scenography. This stage in the evolution of design concepts of museum exhibitions is directly related to the context of art development in the 1950s-60s in general, including theater, painting, and cinema. Exhibition designers created a “theater

— 86 — Kseniya I. Novokhatko. Literature Memorial Museums and Exhibitions in Russia in 1920s-1989 where objects act, isolated from their nominal object surroundings, and from their legitimate functions.” 6 For the designer, the whole room, the whole museum was a single colossal still-life, which, in its turn, was divided into compositions in the rooms — separate scenes. The main advantage of the new exhibition design method was considered to be its unique ability to evoke various associations in the visitor. On the one hand, the still-life had a precise meaning and included memorial objects. On the other hand, the objects were not just objects, they were raised to the level of the metaphor, symbol, and so every visitor “objectized” and interpreted them in accordance with his own life experience and personal emotions. The new exhibition was similar to the design of the Lermontov exhibition in terms of using not only associative connections between the objects and of theatrical scenography techniques, but also contemporary equipment and new materials — glass, chrome-plated metal etc. It accentuated the symbolic meaning and historical texture of each item. The design concept of the State A. S. Pushkin Museum exhibition became a prototype for a great many literary museums established within the next 30 years. At that period, we can see the parallel development of several design concepts and exhibition strategies. In 1970, in Feodosiya the Alexander Grin Museum was established, where the so-called “romantic” approach was applied. The museum was created in the house in which the writer had lived for several years in the 1920s and where some of his key works had been written. The museum exhibition recreates not only details of the writer’s everyday surroundings and of his study, but above all the romantic world of his literary characters. An anchor near the entrance to the house, heavy doors, and associational rooms instead of traditional museum rooms — “The Basement of the Fregate”, “Captain Ghez’s Cabin”, “Clipper Room”, “Rostral Room”, “Cabin of Wanderings”, built upon the combination of objects from the author’s real life and the imagery of his works. The museum project was designed by the Moscow artist and architect S. G. Brodsky. In 1976, the M. Ye. Saltykov-Shchedrin Literary and Memorial Museum was opened in Tver. It was established to commemorate the

— 87 — Kseniya I. Novokhatko. Literature Memorial Museums and Exhibitions in Russia in 1920s-1989

150th anniversary of the writer’s birth. The author of the design project of the museum, located in the memorial house where the writer had lived for two years, was Yuri Kirtselli. The core of the exhibition was the illustrative panel pictures by Valery Chumakov, which served as a sort of “windows” onto 19th-century Russia. It was a further development of the illustrative method, when supplementary materials grew to the level of spatial objects and assumed the task of creating the emotional and content-related environment. At the Pushkin memorial apartment on the Arbat (a branch of the State A. S. Pushkin Museum), which was opened to the public in 1985, a totally different exhibition design method was used. In this case only the space itself was memorial — a truly memorial apartment, the one that the poet rented shortly before his marriage and that was related to the happiest period of his life. But there were no objects available for the designers that the apartment had contained for certain at that period. They could recreate the environment using the memoirs and typological objects or Pushkin’s memorial objects from the museum’s collection. However, the authors of the exhibition decided not to do it, but instead to preserve and accentuate the value of the space itself, leaving it almost empty. The apartment had preserved an interior arrangement typical for that time. The authors preferred to convey the memorial atmosphere and the memory of the poet though individual rarities of a strongly figurative, symbolic nature. “All is centered around the writing-desk and the quill”, the designer of the exhibition Evgeny Rosenblum wrote. Innovative design of a literary and memorial exhibition was also offered by the authors of the new exhibition of the V. V. Mayakovsky museum in 1989. During the renovation, the museum faced a challenge — how to turn a little study of some 10 square meters, which was physically incapable of having enough room for even one one- hundredth of “Mayakovsky’s personality”, into a memorial exhibition? Moreover, Mayakovsky did not in fact have a “home” — he lived off other people’s hospitality and “on the speaker’s platform”. The authors of the exhibition made the decision to dismantle the interior arrangement of the original memorial house and use its area for the exhibition of the

— 88 — Kseniya I. Novokhatko. Literature Memorial Museums and Exhibitions in Russia in 1920s-1989

“history of the spirit”. The memorial space of the “boat”-room on the top floor became an integral part of the general composition and narrative. During the work on the exhibition a new team member was involved — a scenarist who translated the scholarly concept into the language of visual artistic images. Here we are referring to the artistic text, which creates, through its expressive qualities, the idea of a visual image, story, characters, and the planes and levels of the narrative. The scenario became a connecting link between the scholarly concept and the design project. This exhibition design method, which is referred to as the imaginative and narrative method, was developed by Taras Polyakov and the designer of the exhibition Evgeny Amaspiur. The core of the new exhibition was a series of installations where memorial objects were used. It is no wonder that the designers chose the genre of the installation, as it was very popular in the 1980s / early 1990s. The general composition ensured a synthesis of the exhibition and its architectural environment. It is also important to note that the chosen method corresponded very well to the figure of the avant-garde poet. One of the main techniques of the imaginative and narrative method was a vague border between an exhibited object and museum equipment. “The showcase and the painting were moving towards each other, and in that process the former acquired a semantic function and the latter was losing its autonomy as a displayed object. The result was a plastic work of art that also functioned as a display case. Both the local space of the former “thematic area” or “group” and the whole exhibition space in general were organized in this way.” 7 Memorial objects were duplicated or “came to life” in the exhibition — a chair could grow and reach the ceiling, and a still-life from Mayakovsky’s poster appeared on the table. Large-scale copies turned into metaphors. The authors of the exhibition created a kaleidoscope of “objectized” phrases (“He entered the Revolution like his house”) and “played out” the key moments of the poet’s personal drama (the “Bathhouse” section, the stand “Lilia Brik. A New Love”) — by means of thematic installations, which included objects from the memorial collection. The new exhibition of the Mayakovsky Museum is a good example of a successful combination of all the factors — resources, the exhibition authors’ talent and tact,

— 89 — Kseniya I. Novokhatko. Literature Memorial Museums and Exhibitions in Russia in 1920s-1989 the personality of the central figure of the exhibition, and the choice of the artistic approach. It still remains the only one of its kind. Having viewed the period from the 1920s to 1989, we saw memorial literary museums progressing from the preservation of the fully memorial environment to the creation of a totally new artistic expression of the subject in the genre of installation. It was observed that the defining role in the development of exhibition strategies was played by the proportion of the memorial and monographic components. It also became evident that design concepts of museum exhibitions develop in keeping with the general development of artistic processes, assimilating new tendencies in various art forms.

ENDNOTES 1 Dmitrieva, E. 1989. “The Language of the architecture as a key factor of museum communication”, Museology. Problems of the culture communication in museum practice. Journal of the Scientific Institute for Culture Research Edited by V. Dukelskiy. Мoscow, p. 56 2 Vinogradova, K. 1957. “Exhibition activity of the State Literature Museum in 1923– 1954”, Methods of the literature permanent installation. Moscow 3 Ibidem 4 Ibidem 5 Polyakov, Taras. 1997. How to do a museum? Moscow, p. 29 6 Rozenblyum, Eugeny. 1974. “Making museum installation”, Artist in Design. Moscow, p. 85 7 Polyakov, Taras. 1997. How to do a museum? Moscow, p. 29–30

REFERENCES 1. Vanslova, E., Nikolaeva, N. 1977. “Some aspects of the exhibition design in literature museums”, Actual problems of literature museums activity. Moscow 2. Barthes, Roland Gérard. 1994. The Death of the Author. Moscow 3. Vinogradova, K. 1957. “Exhibition activity of the State Literature Museum in 1923– 1954”, Methods of the literature permanent installation. Moscow 4. Gershtein, Emma. 1993. Moscow memories. Moscow 5. Dmitrieva, E. 1989. “The Language of the architecture as a key factor of museum communication”, Museology. Problems of the culture communication in museum practice. Journal of the Scientific Institute for Culture Research Edited by Dukelskiy, Vladimir. Moscow

— 90 — Kseniya I. Novokhatko. Literature Memorial Museums and Exhibitions in Russia in 1920s-1989

6. “Museums of the history of Revolution and memorial literature museums”, Journal of the Scientific Institute for Culture Research, 1973. no.12. Moscow 7. Kaulen, Maria. 2001. “Exhibition and exhibitor”, Lecture abstract. Moscow 8. Krein, Aleksandr. 2002. Life in the museum. Moscow 9. Maystrovskaya, Maria. 2002. “The art of museum exhibition: development of the genre”, Museum and artist. Conference papers. The State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia. Moscow 10. “Museum Exhibition. On the way to the XXI-century museum”, Research papers. 1997. Composed by Maystrovskaya, Maria. Moscow 11. Polyakov, Taras. 1997. How to do a museum? Moscow 12. Rozhdestvensky, Konstantin. 1970. Ensemble and exhibition. Leningrad 13. Rozenblyum, Eugeny. 1974. “Making museum installation”, Artist in Design. Moscow 14. Eisenstein, Sergei. 1998. Toward a theory of montage. Moscow

— 91 — Svetlana I. Khvatova. Premiere of the First Adyghe Opera: Desire and Opportunities

Svetlana I. Khvatova Doctor of Arts, Head of Department of Musical-Performing Disciplines of the Art Institute acting Professor of the Adyghe State University [email protected] Maykop, Adygeya PREMIERE OF THE FIRST ADYGHE OPERA: DESIRE AND OPPORTUNITIES

Summary: In the article, devoted to the premiere of the first Adyghe opera “Distant Thunder’s Rolling” by Aslan Nehay, the specifics of modern musical theater life in Adygeya is outlined as well as the problems of formation of Adyghe school of composition are addressed. Development and “survival” of musical culture in the periphery, preservation of national cultural minorities of Russia are associated with the state and philanthropic support. Keywords: Musical theater, Adyghe music, composer, premiere, the material conditions of musical culture development. Adygeya music lovers witnessed a historical event on the 15th of December: there was a premiere of the first national opera “Distant Thunder is Rolling” by Aslan Nehay in the Republic State Philharmonic. The author of the Opera is National Actor of Russia and Adygeya, a Honored Artist of Russia and the Kuban, Karachay-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria, a composer. Aslan Nekhay created it based on the novel “Bziyukskaya Battle” by Ishaq Mashbash within two years during his education at the Tbilisi Conservatory. Three-act heroic epic tells the story of the fate of the Adyghe people during the Caucasian War, social conflicts of tfokotles (peasants) who belonged to Shapsugs tribe and orcs (princes). The conflicts ended in tragedy for an uprising of Shapsug peasants against the Bzhedug princes.

— 92 — Svetlana I. Khvatova. Premiere of the First Adyghe Opera: Desire and Opportunities

The plot of the opera appeared topical during its writing (the fight against social exclusion) as well as during its premiere. Historical events in Adygeya in XVIII–XIX centuries are at the forefront of historical and political debate today and are repeatedly refracted in the works of composers (such as triptych by Czeslav Anzarokov “Ubykhs”) and paintings of artists (series of graphic works by Teuchezh Kat, paintings by Nurbi Lovpache and others). The presence of two dramatic lines in the opera — lyrical, associated with relationship of Hagur and Akoza, and epic-dramatical, revealing a conflict of Shevotlukovs princes and Shapsug poor tfokotles, implied the existence of a sufficiently large number of actors, singers, choir, ballet dancers in the performances. Till March 2012 there were numerous attempts to sound the opera score fragments in a concert version: in 1983 by the Georgian Philharmonic, in 1986 — by the “Lyceum Musical” of the Adyghe Regional Philharmonic [For more detail: 1: 70]. Overture to the opera is constantly in the repertoire of the State Symphony Orchestra of the State Philharmonic of Adygeya Republic and arioso of Akoza is included in the repertoire of Honored Actor of the Republic of Adygeya Marina Nagoeva. The premiere took place thirty years after its writing. The event is dedicated to the twentieth anniversary of the establishment of the Republic of Adygeya, and everyone expected it with festive enthusiasm. Those engaged in performance of the opera are: the Honored Actor of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Adygeya Yunus Suleymanov, the artistic director and director of the Chamber Music Theatre A. A. Hanahu, the Honored Actor of Russia Mohamed Kulov, the artistic director and choreographer of the State Academic Folk Dance of Adygeya “Nalmes”, and the honored worker of culture of the Russian Federation Zaur Khot, the CEO and artistic Director of the State Philharmonic of the Republic of Adygeya. Almost six-month period of rehearsals was fraught with significant challenges in developing the proposed material; it is difficult to select actors for musical theater major role. As a result there was initially one recorded soundtrack of the orchestral part, then — the choir part. Dances and individual solos were performed “live”. The ambiguity of

— 93 — Svetlana I. Khvatova. Premiere of the First Adyghe Opera: Desire and Opportunities

this fact caused discreet resonance. The press published feedback on greeting the head of Adygeya Aslan Tkhakushinov and the first president Aslan Dzharimov, artistic director of the Kuban Cossack Choir Viktor Zakharchenko and Minister of Culture Alexander Avdeev. The last one expressed his conviction that this work strengthened international relations, developing friendship and understanding between nations [3]. “They noted the great importance and invaluable contribution of those who worked on the creation of the opera and on the establishment and development of national art and culture” [4]. Musicologists kept polite silence, one managed to find the only informational essay by theatre expert Svetlana Shhalahova, occupying the position of Deputy Minister of Culture of the Republic of Adygeya. Opera was only once performed- in fact, at the premiere — and a week later the audience was presented with its two-part TV version. However, after more than a year, let us give an unbiased estimate of what happened: 1. Striving for the birth of opera, willpower of the composer in Adygeya and the joint work of several creative teams, management’s attention to the event shows that it is a political event for the Adyg people, comparable to the status of statehood. It is a sign of belonging to European culture and hot desire to present the Adyghe culture to anyone wishing to understand it (the opera was set in Russian and is planned to be presented in ). As for its importance, it is comparable with the creation of the Republican State creative teams. 2. Staging outlined the specifics of Adygeya Chamber Music Theater named after A. Hanahu. Analysis of repertory lists of nearly two decades has shown that it functions as an operetta theater, musical comedy, and during the holidays — as a theater for young audience, of course, occupying an important niche in the musical life of the republic, but does not work in terms of promoting the national music due to the lack of latter. The repertoire of the past years there seemed to be only the musical comedy by Murat Khupov “Grumpy Daughter-in-Law” by E. Tsey comedy and his own choreographic picture “Light of My Land.” One required considerable assistance for the opera by Aslan Nehay, and what is natural — a genre of grand opera involves other casts.

— 94 — Svetlana I. Khvatova. Premiere of the First Adyghe Opera: Desire and Opportunities

3. Institute of patronage — a support of creative projects by businessmen and heads of state-owned enterprises in Adygeya is currently lacking, and there is no experience of relation of music managers with potential sponsors. Rare exception is Cooperation of State Symphony Orchestra of the Republic of Adygeya and the State Philharmonic with the entrepreneur I. Yachikov and Belorechensk mayor I. Imgrunt that periodically provide support for staff, holding celebrations and holidays with its participation. However, it is obvious that without additional funding to maintain an opera performance in the desired form by the team created specifically for its formulation is impossible. And it is no secret that for the “aging” of the play it takes time and sometimes the best performance of the opera is not the first. 4. “Going to the opera”, and wider — to musical theater, the need for hearing, and sometimes for participation in musical theater performances was felt long before its premiere. Apparently, the increase in the share of the musical performances staged by Adyghe and Russian drama theater and puppet theater, is considered by directors as a way to attract the viewer’s attention to performance, improve its competitiveness. This is one of the latest examples. Puppet Theatre “Golden Pitcher” since its creation for audio productions has often used ready phonograms from popular cartoons, often “adopted” with altered verses, approximate to the content of the literary text. However, for the new production of the play “Golden Pitcher” based on the Adyghe folk tales for the first time one commissioned score by Kaplan Tuco, which gave a number of national colors to performance’s sound. Share of song and dance material, as well as background music has increased considerably. State Song and Dance Ensemble “Islamey” perform all their concerts as vocal and choreographic with performance elements (“Nart Symphony”, “Return Song”, and “Magomed Hagaudzh Rhapsody”). Operating folk theaters “Lepemaf” (Adygeisk) “Communal” (stanica Giaginskaya), “Muse” (a. Koshehabl), folk theater of district center and culture in aul Hakurinohabl practicing performances of copyright literary- musical compositions, amateur musical groups involved, including the formulation of traditional festivals and ceremonies, the most striking of the presented at the regional festival at rites and traditions of the

— 95 — Svetlana I. Khvatova. Premiere of the First Adyghe Opera: Desire and Opportunities

peoples of the North Caucasus “Ienegeudzh” (Teuchezhsky district, director, Honored worker of Culture of the RA and RF A. Stash), and the ritual “Apple Spas” (Giaginskiy district, director Zyablova S. P.). Striving to ensure that opera performances were staged in Maikop, spawned the staging of “Eugeny Onegin” by Tchaikovsky by the forces of Adyghe Republican College of Arts named after U. H. Tkhabisimov in 2010. And despite the fact that some of the soloists were invited from Krasnodar, the concert was performed. In this context, the crowning part of the musical-theater movement of opera production seems to us logical and natural. However, this event gives rise to a number of observations about the current state of the composer’s creativity and musical culture of Adygeya in general. There was the first and to date the only opera, there is a desire to perform it, but there is no possibility — there is no creative team able to have a permanent repertoire of this work — combined efforts and additional investments are required. There is the State Symphony Orchestra, but the first Adyghe Symphony has not yet been written: listeners are familiar with several instrumental concerts by U. Ch. Anzarokov, M. Khupov, K. Tuco and G. Chich, one has written a number of cantatas and oratorios, but the Choir has existed for only 6 years, after its closure oratorio by G. Chich “The Tale of Adygeya” was performed in Nalchik. The largest number of works are the vocal, choral and instrumental miniatures. New interesting creative findings by Aslan Nehay are related to his work in a unique ensemble “Islamey”, which has throughout the world become the hallmark of art of the Adyghes, whose fate depends entirely on the will of the composer. This is a kind of a testing ground on which both traditional and mostly new musical forms are mastered. It is a landmark event, as here the author is trying to preserve the identity of the Adyghe traditional music and, at the same time, makes it understandable worldwide that brilliant performances are shown not only in neighborhoods of Adyghe Diaspora. Grandiose musical- theatrical performances by “Islamey” — is a result of written opera and a desire to find one’s own unique way. However, it should be recognized that the ensemble exists thanks to the creative initiative of

— 96 — Svetlana I. Khvatova. Premiere of the First Adyghe Opera: Desire and Opportunities

Aslan Nehay (who recently celebrated his 70th anniversary), who has no successors, the basis of his repertoire — only his writings and the existence of “Islamey” are closed in the figure of the composer. As for the development of traditional genres of academic music, one lays big hopes on professional composers of the youth, who have special conservatory education — Dovlet Anzarokov (St. Petersburg, Russia), Aslan Gotov (Canada), and Murat Khupov (Spain), who successfully find their way in musical-administrative, pedagogical, and performing field. Their creative ambitions are sometimes related to Adygeya, though “the spirit dwells where it wills” — a talented person seeks for a place of maximum realization, and unfortunately today it is not Maykop. Nevertheless, the demand for musical theater spectacle remains high. It is proved by the sold out performances of touring troupes, opera singers, and the performances born in 2011 by the school of musical stage theater “Art-Riton” at the Art Institute of the Adyghe State University. The repertoire of the musical within three years has replenished with “Romeo and Juliet” by Gérard Presgurvic, “Don Dzhuan” by Felix Gray, and the rock opera “Mozart” by Dove Attia and Albert Cohen. This example convinces us that this kind of activity may be promising even in a small Russian town, given the fact that the organization of musical-theater business is unthinkable without administrative will, sufficient creative forces and substantial investment. Obstacle to the implementation of such activities on the periphery could be the introduction of the Federal Law “On autonomous institutions” from 03.11.2006 N 174-FZ adopted by the State Duma on the 11th of October 2006 and approved by the Federation Council on the 27th of October, 2006 [5]. So far, in the regions it is not fully implemented. The transition of Philharmonic in small subsidized regions and republics to the conditions dictated by this document will make it impossible to implement the majority of large-scale creative projects and threaten the existence of many provincial cultural institutions. For indigenous population, for whom theaters and Philharmonic Houses are of cultural (guarding) importance, such a scenario could be tragic.

— 97 — Svetlana I. Khvatova. Premiere of the First Adyghe Opera: Desire and Opportunities

REFERENCES 1. Sokolova, A.N., Nekhay Aslan. 2011. “Opera “Distant Thunder’s Rolling”, Musical Culture of Adygea. Creativity of composers of Adygea Republic. — Maikop, no.1, pp. 67–79. 2. Chepniyan, N. L. 2002. Formation of professional musical culture of Adygea, Rostov-on-Don, p.214. 3. Caucasian Knot. Electronic resource: kabardino-balkaria.kavkaz-uzel.ru›articles… ?print…; (Available 03.03.2013). 4. Shhalahova, S. “Opera of his life. The premiere of the first opera in Adygea were sold out”, Internet newspaper “Yuga.ru”. Maikop.BezFormata.ru” Лента›… - v-adigee-operi/2199147, (Available 04.03.2013) 5. Federal Law 03.11.2006 N 174-FZ “On autonomous institutions” Electronic resource. (Available at http://www.nalogovaya.ru/ zakonodatelstvo/index.htm.)

— 98 — Tatiana V. Valentey. The Importance of being Nice and Precise in Business Communication

Tatiana V. Valentey PhD, associate professor Moscow State University [email protected] Russia, Moscow THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING NICE AND PRECISE IN BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

Summary:Writing style is unique to each person. The task of the teacher is to acquaint the students with it and help them to master the basic principles of good style in business communication. These principles can be summarized as: strong, concise, exact wording; use of short sentences, first position and active voice for emphatic points; neutral language for reports and positive language for letters and memos. Keywords: communication, style awareness, conciseness, jargon, bureaucratese, exactness, sentence length. The ability to communicate influences every professional’s career. Especially so in business. Exchange of information may involve two people in person-to-person conversation, it may draw a group of people together in a business meeting or it can have a form of oral presentation. Another equally important form of communication in business environment is exchange of written documents: letters, memos, reports. In both oral and written forms of business communication the concept of style is of paramount importance, which is noticed sometimes for its presence, sometimes for its absence. The abstract notion “style” incorporates a variety of elements and is manifested in many ways: word choice, voices of verbs, sentence patters and paragraph length contribute to the sense of style in writing. Conciseness is essential to business writing. Although some writers apparently believe that length impresses readers, it is brevity that readers most appreciate. Ability to convey complex and detailed information within a limited space is a valuable skill for any writer. In composing business documents students should follow the guideline “less is more”.

— 99 — Tatiana V. Valentey. The Importance of being Nice and Precise in Business Communication

Compare the effect of “I would very much like to express my appreciation of your participation” with “Thank you for your participation”. Using fewer words gives each word increased significance and thus intensifies the style. The teachers should however guard students against condensing to the point of either choppiness or incompleteness. They should not omit essential information or leave questions unanswered solely in the interest of compactness. The style must be compact but not abrupt. When editing for conciseness mind that it is necessary to maintain fluidity, utilizing smooth transitions and a variety of sentence patterns to give balance to the document. Another important means of mastering good style is eliminating speech redundancies. Although there is the opinion that we should “write the way we speak”, spoken and written forms of communication do differ. Because we speak at a faster pace than we write, spoken language is more wordy and repetitive. Written language, on the other hand, should be more compact. It omits or condenses many of the wordy phrases common to spoken tongue. Good style discourages such phrases as: “due to the fact that”(because); “in the near future” (soon), “on the grounds that” (if); “for the purpose of” (to); “with regard to” (about); “in the view of the foregoing circumstances” (thus); “in the event that” (if). Avoiding jargon or bureaucratese is another important aspects of mastering good style. Jargon can not be avoided completely in professional communication but it should be used sparingly. Such phrases as “negative cash-flow position” can sound obscure for those who are not “in” and can easily be replaced by “shortage of money” — a phrase clear to both specialist and layman. It is commonly recognized that business communication should use simple and direct language. One way to achieve it is to concentrate on action verbs and participles rather than on noun phrases. Students should use the verbs “analyze”, “transport” and “complete” or the participles “analyzing”, “transporting” and “completing” and avoid corresponding noun phrases “the analysis of”, “the transportation of” and “the completion of”. The shorter form produces a livelier, more direct, more readable style.

— 100 — Tatiana V. Valentey. The Importance of being Nice and Precise in Business Communication

In order to keep their styling natural students should be recommended to avoid popular buzzwords and phrases that proliferate in business communications (at this point in time, policwise, commonality of interests etc.) and such “-ize” words as: “prioritize”, “strategize”, “conceptualize” etc. Such “business” phrases as “allow me to express”, “as per your instructions”, “we beg to acknowledge receipt”, “please be advised that” etc. are non recommended either. These expressions, while they may have been a standard part of business communications in years past, sound outdated and stiffly formal today. Exactness is another merit of business communications that should be aimed at. Because corporate decisions are based on facts, the documents that guide those decisions must present detailed and exact information: dates, figures, names should be specified. Students should make the most exact reference feasible for the situation. It is also recommended to concentrate on using specific verbs, action verbs rather than “to be”. Thus, instead of writing “The report is on …” write “The report centers on/concerns/focuses on/discusses…”. Students of business English should be encouraged to use active voice of the verb rather than passive (especially in letters and memos). Active voice constructions begin with and focus on the actor and are concise and straightforward. Emphasis also plays an important role in writing. As the beginning position in sentences, paragraphs or entire documents is the strongest, this position should be used for important material. First words in sentences must be significant, that is why students should avoid constructions starting with introductory “It is… or There is…”. The same can be said about the first sentence in a paragraph, which is frequently the topic sentence. For the document as a whole the first paragraph provides direction and conveys the most essential information. The second most emphatic position is the close, so when writing we should end strongly. Final phrases should not look like an afterthought. Sentence length also influences emphasis. Short sentences are emphatic. They suggest action. Because their sound is abrupt, they receive more attention than long sentences. But to avoid fragmented

— 101 — Tatiana V. Valentey. The Importance of being Nice and Precise in Business Communication effect it is recommended to use short sentences deliberately and selectively. The students of business English should realize that the degree of formality largely depends on the relationship between the writer and the reader. A more formal style is appropriate when writing to a group of people, to people you have not met and to your superiors, especially if you work in a big corporation. In a formal style one can use longer sentences, longer paragraphs, more multisyllabic words and more passive voice, it is not recommended to use contractions. A formal style is typical of reports whereas letters and memos allow more informality. Another important aspect of style in business communication is its objectivity. The language of reports should be objective and neutral in connotation A researcher/writer is expected to present unbiased information. Conversely, letters and memos may use words with positive connotations to persuade and to generate acceptance and a sense of goodwill. One of the major characteristics of letters and memos is enthusiasm and a positive attitude, so the message will benefit from using emotionally loaded words such as: “admirable”, “excellent”, “genuine” etc. Negative phrasing, on the other hand, produces negative effect and elicit unfavorable reaction, so words like “reject”, “impossible”, “fault”, “wrong”, “cheap” etc. should be avoided.

REFERENCES 1. Daniels, J., Radebaugh, L. H. 1996. International business: Environment and Operations. 4th ed. Reading, MA: Addisson-Wesley Publishing Co.,1996. 2. Vic, Gretchen, Wikinson, Clide & Wilkinson, Dorothy. 1990. Writing and Speaking in Business, 10th ed. Homewood, IL: Irwin.

— 102 — The Art and Literature Scientific and Analytical Journal «TEXTS» has a humanitarian nature. Articles are published in French, English, German and Russian. The Journal focuses on research papers about the theory, history and criticism of art, literature, film, theater and music. The Journal is published four times a year.

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