The Soil of Radonezh and the Artists of Abramtsevo

Experiment 25 (2019) 83-100

brill.com/expt

Inge Wierda Lecturer in Art History at Wackers Academie, Amsterdam, Boulevard Magenta, Laag-Soeren, and HOVO University of Utrecht Editor-in-chief of Eikonikon: Journal of Icons [email protected]

Abstract

This article examines the historical and spiritual significance of Radonezh soil and its impact on the artistic practice of the Abramtsevo circle. Through a close reading of three paintings—Viktor Vasnetsov’s Saint Sergius of Radonezh (1881) and Alenushka (1881), and Elena Polenova’s Pokrov Mother of God (1883)—it analyzes how the Abramtsevo artists negotiated Saint Sergius’s legacy alongside their own experiences of the sacred sites in this area and especially the Pokrovskii churches. These artworks demonstrate how, in line with the prevalent nineteenth-century Slavophile interests, Radonezh soil provided a fertile ground for articulating a distinct Russian Orthodox identity in the visual arts of the 1880s and continues to inspire artists to this day.

Keywords

Abramtsevo – Khotkovo – Akhtyrka – Sergiev Posad – Elena Polenova – Viktor Vasnetsov – Saint Sergius – Pokrov Mother of God – Intercession – Alenushka – Icon of the Akhtyrka Mother of God – Trinity

From July 16 to October 10, 2014, the Federal State Cultural Establishment Artistic and Literary Museum-Reserve Abramtsevo organized the exhibition “By the Pokrovskii Convent. Artists of Radonezh Soil.” Local artists such as Iulia Goncharova, Oleg Lieven, and Aleksandr Petrov celebrated the seven hundredth anniversary of the birth of Saint Sergius of Radonezh with artworks

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/2211730X-12341331Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:15:06PM via free access 84 Wierda executed in different materials and techniques.1 Trained at the Khotkovo Art Academy near Abramtsevo, these contemporary artists created plaster reliefs, sculptures, works in bronze and wood, ceramics, paintings, graphics, and icons, just as the artists of the Abramtsevo circle had done in the late nineteenth century.2 This article focuses on the relationship between the art practices of the Abramtsevo circle and their connection to the physical locale of Radonezh, literally, its “soil.” It also addresses the ways in which its religious and artistic legacy continue to resonate in Russian culture to the present day. The area in question derives its name from Saint Sergius (1314-92), who, seven hundred years ago, traversed the soil of Radonezh, Khotkovo, Sergiev Posad, and its environs. Like the region’s religious believers, nineteenth- century artists embraced the legacy of Saint Sergius and the sacred sites of Radonezh soil. The Holy Trinity St. Sergius Monastery in Sergiev Posad and the Pokrov Mother of God churches in Khotkovo and Akhtyrka were particular favorites. The following three paintings will be analyzed in detail in order to demonstrate the importance of Radonezh soil to the Abramtsevo artistic com- munity: Viktor Vasnetsov’s Saint Sergius (1881) and Alenushka (1881), and Elena Polenova’s icon of the Pokrov Mother of God (1883). A recent sculptural monument of Saint Sergius epitomizes his significance for Radonezh soil. Saint Sergius is portrayed as a standing boy holding a Holy Trinity icon before him with a starets or elder towering behind him.3 This monument was erected in 1998 in Radonezh, the town where the spiritual journey of Sergius had begun. After his parents, Saints Cyril and Mary, had died in the monastery of Khotkovo, he and his brother Stefan withdrew to the forest and constructed a small chapel dedicated to the Holy Trinity. In his youth Sergius met a starets, who predicted that the Trinity would play a central role in his life. The story of Saint Sergius is well-known. Bartholomew, Sergius’s name at birth, befriended forest animals—specifically bears—and learned to cope with the cold. The young anchorite became strong in body and spirit. Soon he attracted pupils who convinced him to establish a monastery, the Holy Trinity St. Sergius

1 The complete title of this exhibition is: “U sten Pokrovskogo monastyria. Khudozhniki Radonezhskogo kraia k 700-letiiu Prepodobnogo Sergeia Radonezhskogo.” A catalogue was published by the Abramtsevo State Museum-Reserve. 2 The Abramtsevo circle is sometimes referred to as the Mamontov circle after the late nineteenth-century owners of the Abramtsevo estate, where artists had gathered and worked on projects that had a profound impact on the history of Russian art. The existence of the Khotkovo Art Academy reaffirms Elizaveta Mamontova’s vision and Elena Polenova’s efforts. They preserved the Arts and Crafts tradition in Russian decorative art and provided local artists with education and jobs in their own region. 3 The stone image is indebted to Nikolai Roerich’s abstract image of Saint Sergius of Radonezh (1932), Mikhail Nesterov’s painting The Vision of the Boy Bartholomew (1889-90), and Andrei Rublev’s Holy Trinity icon (1422). It also resembles a Paternitas or New Testament Trinity icon.

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FIGURE 1 Map of Radonezh soil PHOTO © FEDERAL STATE CULTURAL ESTABLISHMENT ARTISTIC AND LITERARY MUSEUM-RESERVE ABRAMTSEVO

Monastery in Sergiev Posad, from then on referred to as the Trinity Lavra. The site has attracted numerous pilgrims since its construction in the 1340s, and during the heyday of the Abramtsevo circle its members also frequented the monasteries and churches on Radonezh soil in Sergiev Posad, Khotkovo, and Akhtyrka (fig. 1). Savva Mamontov and Elizaveta Mamontova were attracted to the region and in 1870 purchased the Abramtsevo summer estate from Sofia Aksakova. The estate was situated along the Trinity railway line between Khotkovo and Sergiev Posad.4 Mamontov was a stakeholder in the Trinity Railway and had witnessed discussions between his father and the medieval historian, Mikhail Pogodin, about this line. According to them, building it was essential in order to increase the accessibility of the Trinity Lavra for those pilgrims who wished to undertake their compulsory once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage to St. Sergius’s

4 See Inge Wierda, “Abramtsevo: Multiple Cultural Expressions of a Russian Folk and Religious Identity” (PhD diss., University of Leeds, Leeds, 2008), 86-106.

Experiment 25 (2019) 83-100 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:15:06PM via free access 86 Wierda shrine. The Mamontovs invited artists such as Mikhail Nesterov to live and work on the estate, who subsequently painted the different stages of the life of Saint Sergius.5 In 1882, the Mamontovs added the Church of the Spas Nerukotvornyi [Savior Not Made by Human Hands] to Radonezh soil. Its location—in the heartland of Russian Orthodoxy—combined with the Slavophile legacy of the previous owner of the Abramtsevo estate, were key factors in the decision to construct it in a neo-medieval style.6 The legacy of Saint Sergius had grown in significance since the Middle Ages, while Slavophile religious thought and the ide- alization of pre-Petrine Russia coincided with a renewed interest in Russian medieval history and art, all of which were intimately linked with the broader nineteenth-century search for a national identity in Russia.

Sergiev Posad and Viktor Vasnetsov’s Icon of Saint Sergius of Radonezh

The now famous cycle of Saint Sergius paintings by Nesterov was indebted to Vasnetsov’s less familiar tribute to this widely revered saint.7 Before Nesterov began to paint the series, he came upon Vasnetsov’s earlier icon of Saint Sergius of Radonezh (1882) (fig. 2) in the Abramtsevo church, and reported back to his wife:

I […] mention Sergius, also by Vasnetsov. As nowhere else, one can feel our native north here. Saint Sergius stands with a scroll in one hand and blesses with his other hand. In the background an old church can be seen and behind it a thick forest. A Trinity icon appears in heaven. Here, a child-like, unspoiled naivety borders upon perfect art.8

The Saint Sergius icon is an early example of Vasnetsov’s exploration of religious and spiritual themes, which he had pursued throughout his artistic career, as discussed by Wendy Salmond in her article in this volume.

5 For Nesterov’s Saint Sergius series, see Mikhail Nesterov. V poiskakh svoei Rossii. K 150-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia, ed. Lidiia Iovleva (exh.cat., State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, 2013). 6 For a detailed discussion, see Inge Wierda, “Abramtsevo’s Neo-medieval Church of the Saviour Nerukotvornyi (1881-82): A Manifestation of ‘Sobornost’,” in Eastern Christian Studies 6: Aesthetics as a Religious Factor in Eastern and Western Christianity, ed. Jonathan Sutton and William van den Bercken (Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2005), 241-61. 7 See Wierda, “Abramtsevo: Multiple Cultural Expressions,” 89-94 and 210-20. 8 Mikhail Nesterov, letter to Aleksandra Nesterova, July 18, 1888, repr. in M.V. Nеstеrоv—Iz pisem, ed. Alla Rusakova (Leningrad: Iskusstvo, 1968), 18.

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FIGURE 2 Viktor Vasnetsov, Saint Sergius of Radonezh, 1881, oil on canvas, 138 × 61.5 cm, Church of the Savior Not Made by Human Hands, Federal State Cultural Establishment Artistic and Literary Museum-Reserve Abramtsevo, Russia PHOTO © 2006 INGE WIERDA

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Born into a pious family and an earnest Russian Orthodox believer, Vasnetsov trained to become a priest before embarking on a career in art. He remained faithful to his religious upbringing and was proud of his national identity. As Nesterov observed, in Vasnetsov’s icon of Saint Sergius, the artist expressed reverence for the fourteenth-century resurgence of Russian monas- ticism and its expansion to the north. Although in his unguarded comments Nesterov labelled Vasnetsov “naïve,” the latter was an ambitious and vision- ary idealist. Like a number of Russian scholars who had been familiar with German Idealism since the 1820s, Vasnetsov wished to counter Hegel’s claim that “a nation is only world-historical in so far as its fundamental element and basic aims have embodied a universal principle.” As a nation, Russia had not achieved a “spiritual self-consciousness,” as Hegel had proposed.9 Along with the Russian intelligentsia, Vasnetsov aspired to develop the Russian spirit in order to help his nation evolve and contribute positively to the World Spirit of the future. Vasnetsov communicated his ideas in Hegelian terms to the Slavophile critic Vladimir Stasov:

We must contribute to the treasures of world art by fully focusing our- selves on the development of our national art, that is to say, that we, with all the perfection and wholeheartedness of which we are capable, must portray the beauty, power and meaning of our national life: our Russian landscape and the men of Russia, our present and past life, our dreams and our belief, and, if we succeed, reflect the eternal and universal through our national reality.10

Vasnetsov’s icon of Saint Sergius reflects Hegelian criteria. Examination of a recently discovered preliminary study of the icon helps us understand the notion of a common human evolution within the national framework of the Russian Orthodox Church (fig. 3).11 In this study, Vasnetsov draws attention to the monastic path of asceticism and devotion as a means of spiritual evolution, for he portrays Saint Sergius as a hieroschemamonk, with cowl, white chiton bearing an embroidered cross, and black cassock covering his body. He thus stressed Saint Sergius’s initiation in

9 Georg Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History. Introduction: Reason in History, trans. Hugh Nisbet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 145-49. 10 Viktor Vasnetsov, letter to Vladimir Stasov, October 7, 1898, cited in Viktor Lobanov, Viktor Vasnetsov v Abramtseve (Moscow: Izd. Oiru, 1928), 44. 11 See Elena Mitrofanova, Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov. Proizvedeniia V.M. Vasnetsova iz sobraniia Muzeia-zapovednika Abramtsevo i chastnykh kollektsii (exh.cat., Abramtsevo: Muzei-zapovednik Abramtsevo, 2012), 79.

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FIGURE 3 Viktor Vasnetsov, Saint Sergius of Radonezh, 1881, charcoal drawing on cardboard, 22.6 × 11.5 cm, Federal State Cultural Establishment Artistic and Literary Museum-Reserve Abramtsevo, Russia PHOTO © FEDERAL STATE CULTURAL ESTABLISHMENT ARTISTIC AND LITERARY MUSEUM-RESERVE ABRAMTSEVO

Experiment 25 (2019) 83-100 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:15:06PM via free access 90 Wierda the Great Schema, an advanced monastic rank, and his total withdrawal from the world. The Trinity Chapel founded by the monk and the tree (the original meeting place of Bartholomew and the starets) in Radonezh can be seen in the lower part of the icon. In the upper left corner there is an image of Christ. A hieroschemamonk is closely connected to Christ, continuously repeating his name. According to biblical texts (Matthew 6:33, 20:26, and Mark 9:35) on the scroll that he is holding in his hand in the final icon, the hieroschemamonk, summoned to serve all, is seeking the kingdom of God.12 One question raised by the iconography in this study is why Vasnetsov chose to include the Trinity icon instead of the figure of Christ in the final image. A possible explanation is the Trinity’s different connotations: the Christian dogma of the Trinity was an important feature throughout Saint Sergius’s life. Rublev’s Holy Trinity icon was made in reverence to Saint Sergius, the founder of the Trinity Lavra, and its presence in the icon references the physical prox- imity of the monastery to Abramtsevo. In accordance with the custom to honor local (founding) saints in the lower row of an iconostasis, Vasnetsov’s icon was made and placed accordingly in Abramtsevo’s church. Vasnetsov’s inclusion of the Trinity icon can also be understood as a ref- erence to Abramtsevo’s Slavophile associations, elicited by the Abramtsevo manor house, which still accommodated the library of its former owner, the writer Sergei Aksakov. In his time, the estate was frequently visited by promi- nent Slavophiles, who maintained that Russian identity was intimately linked to pre-Petrine times and the Middle Ages, and had its roots in the Russian Orthodox religion. The Mamontovs and Vasnetsov embraced this Slavophile notion, constructing their church in a neo-medieval Russian style, honoring Russia’s most revered medieval saint and the centrality of the Holy Trinity in his life and the Russian Orthodox tradition. Indeed, Saint Sergius paved a Russian Orthodox path to the Trinity or Unity, a state that Christ had experienced when he stated that he was “one with God,” or a state in which, according to Andrew Louth, the Trinity can be experienced between the creator, creation, and church, through the Holy Spirit.13

12 With thanks to my colleague at Eikonikon. Journal of Icons, Père Antoine Lambrechts, who deciphered the biblical texts on the scroll. 13 Andrew Louth, Modern Orthodox Thinkers. From the Philokalia until the Present (Gosport, UK: Ashford Colour Press, 2015), 23.

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Akhtyrka and Viktor Vasnetsov’s Alenushka

In 1881 Vasnetsov worked simultaneously on the Abramtsevo iconostasis proj- ect, a series of paintings based on folk tales for the Donetsk railway, and the now famous oil painting Alenushka.14 The relationship between Vasnetsov’s secular works and the icons he made between 1880 and 1881 is especially in- teresting. Vasnetsov made studies for Alenushka over the course of two years, focusing on the figure and the natural setting, as well as on the harmony between the two. In February 1881, he sent the painting to the ninth exhibition of the Peredvizhniki [Wanderers], first in St. Petersburg, and then in Moscow two months later. The catalogue for the St. Petersburg exhibition listed the painting as Alenushka: Half-witted Lass. Due to the disconcerting nature of the figure, the picture was not well received. The press labelled it “insane” and “painful,” and neither the leading Peredvizhnik artist, Ivan Kramskoi, nor the collector, Pavel Tretiakov, were enthusiastic.15 Critic Nikolai Aleksandrov even contended that: “actually, the girl is not a half-wit, she is simply called that […]. Everyone calls Alenushka half-witted […].”16 The subtitle was subsequently omitted in the Moscow catalogue. The critic Sergei Flerov reacted with the following words: “Who was this Alenushka? A half-witted lass whom he actually met? Or a fairytale figure?”17 Vasnetsov responded by making some alterations to the painting, which gave it a more poetic “Russian” appearance, before send- ing it off to another show—the “All-Russian Arts and Industry Exhibition” in Moscow in 1882. He made changes to the face, neck, and shoulders, as well as to the overall color scheme, combining the figure and the surrounding nature into a poetic unity. As evidenced by his response, Vasnetsov was affiliated with artists who sought to articulate a national identity in their art. With the end of Neo- Classicism, the identity crisis of the 1840s, and the emancipatory movements of the 1860s, artists were challenged to pay homage to the people of the nation, as well as to the “soil.” The artists of Abramtsevo responded to this need, paying

14 Vasnetsov was commissioned to decorate the central railway station with a triptych depicting scenes from Russian folk tales, symbolizing the marriage of technology and popular national traditions. The triptych consisted of Three Tsarevnas of the Underworld Kingdom (1879-81), The Flying Carpet (1880) and The Battle of the Russians and Scythians (1881). 15 Albina Lazuko, Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov (Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1990), 47. 16 Nikolai Morgunov and Natalia Morgunova-Rudnitskaia, Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov. Zhizn’ i tvorchestvo (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1962), 202, cited in Lydia Gladkova and Eleonora Paston, “Expertise,” Tretyakov Gallery Magazine, no. 2 (2008): 19. 17 Gladkova and Paston, “Expertise,” 19.

Experiment 25 (2019) 83-100 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:15:06PM via free access 92 Wierda tribute to the magical natural environs and sacredness of Radonezh soil.18 Vasnetsov explained that he wished to articulate a typical Russian girl and found her just there, in Akhtyrka. She was enveloped in the majestic silence of the forest, sitting near a pond surrounded by tiny forest flowers. The girl was at one with the soil of Radonezh. Her attitude was one of humble openness to the Creator, seeking consolation and dissolution in His divine creation. Vasnetsov recalled: “Alenushka was on my mind for a long time, but I actually saw her in Akhtyrka when I met a bare-headed girl who caught my imagination. So much sadness, loneliness and purely Russian melancholy was in her eyes! Somehow the Russian spirit emanated from her!”19 In addition to the critics mentioned above, the painter and author Igor Grabar stated in the introduction of his six-part History of Russian Art (1909-17) that “with Vasnetsov’s endeavor to paint a typical Russian girl, Alenushka, an eerie mystery began.”20 The following is a reconstruction of the process of its creation and the connections between Russianness and suffering, as reflected in the Russian people, Russian folk tales, and Russian Orthodoxy. In Akhtyrka, Vasnetsov had made a sketch (fig. 4) of a local girl who was sitting by a pond grieving. As he was working on other folk tales at the time, no doubt, he associated the girl with the character of Alenushka in Afanasiev’s folk tale, Sister Alenushka and Brother Ivanushka, whence the painting took its title. The local girl shares traits with the maiden in the tale: the latter was an orphan, endlessly wandering, gazing into a pond with great sadness as she remembered her little brother who had changed into a goat. Having hired a dacha in the summer of 1880 in the village of Akhtyrka, located four kilometers from Abramtsevo and Khotkovo, Vasnetsov acquainted himself with the local church, which had been constructed in 1722 to house the miraculous icon, the Akhtyrka Mother of God (fig. 5). The church belonged to the estate of Prince Sergei Trubetskoi and the Mamontov family usually celebrated the feast day of the Akhtyrka icon at the Trubetskoi family home on July 2 of each year. The image of the Akhtyrka Mother of God, resting her head on her left arm, looking with great sadness at her crucified son depicted on her right, must have left a deep impression on Vasnetsov. The similarities with his grieving Alenushka, who stares into the

18 For Radonezh landscapes by Mikhail Nesterov, Polenova, Vasilii Polenov, Ilia Repin, Valentin Serov, and Vasnetsov, see Wierda, “Abramtsevo: Multiple Cultural Expressions,” 86-106. 19 Cited in various sources, such as Lazuko, Vasnetsov, 47; Lobanov, Vasnetsov v Abramtseve, 98; and Mitrofanova, Proizvedeniia V.M. Vasnetsova, 10. 20 Lazuko, Vasnetsov, 47.

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FIGURE 4 Viktor Vasnetsov, Study for Alenushka, 1880, oil on canvas, 26.5 × 19.5 cm, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, reproduced in Nadezhda Shanina, Viktor Vasnetsov (Leningrad: Aurora Art Publishers, 1979), 44, ill. 41 dark pond, are striking, the resemblance being most apparent in his charcoal drawing from 1880 (fig. 6). From Aktyrkha, the artist returned to Abramtsevo where Mamontov’s daughter, Vera, inspired him to embellish the figure of Alenushka. According to Vasnetsov, Vera “was a typical Russian girl in character, in the beauty of her face, in her charm.”21 The first image gradually developed from a simply- dressed village girl into a beautiful woman with full lips, but kept the wild eyes of a forlorn orphan.22 The tragic fate of orphans in Russia at that time, as well

21 Eleonora Paston, Abramtsevo: Iskusstvo i zhizn’ (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 2003), 409. 22 Vera Glushkova, Usad’by Podmoskov’ia. Istoricheskii putevoditel’ (Moscow: Veche, 2006), 109.

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FIGURE 5 Akhtyrka Mother of God, 2000s, copy of the original icon, tempera on panel, The Pokrovskii Church, Akhtyrka PHOTO © 2019 INNA TSVETKOVA as the Russian Orthodox identification with the suffering Akhtyrka Mother of God are all bound up in the image of Alenushka. The “goddess of Abramtsevo,” as Vera Mamontova was affectionately called by the artists, and the natural beauty of Radonezh soil—a pristine forested area, crowned with fiery, col- orful skies, and punctuated with ponds bordered by reeds, sandy banks, and

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FIGURE 6 Viktor Vasnetsov, Study for Alenushka, 1880, lead pencil on paper, 29.9 × 32.4 cm, portfolio 10399, f. 16, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, reproduced in Albina Lazuko, Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov (Leningrad: Khudozhnik RSFSR, 1990), 46

Experiment 25 (2019) 83-100 Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 05:15:06PM via free access 96 Wierda stones—add a final lyrical touch to this work of art.23 In epitomizing an ar- chetypal Russian girl, Vasnetsov had borrowed freely from folk tales, religious sources, and people he had met in real life.

Khotkovo and Elena Polenova’s Pokrov Mother of God

In 1883, the engineer and art patron Vasilii Titov invited Elena Polenova to paint the Pokrov Mother of God. Titov had accompanied Mamontov during the construction of the Donetsk railroad and knew about the latter’s infamous commission to Vasnetsov for the triptych of paintings on folkloric themes, which were meant to decorate the halls of the railroad administration.24 Polenova was relatively new to the Abramtsevo circle—starting her activities at the estate in 1882—and she had received acclaim as a lyrical landscape master with her exhibition of watercolors at the Moskovskoe obshchestvo liubitelei khu- dozhestv [Moscow Society of Art Lovers] that year. Polenova’s icon is painted in a naturalist nineteenth-century style, reflecting the times and the rural setting (fig. 7). It is adorned with ornament in a manner typical of Polenova, with floral patterns on all sides, and is set in a wooden frame produced in the joinery workshop that she had overseen at Abramtsevo. The artist visited the Khotkovo Convent for inspiration, where the pediment of the Cathedral of the Intercession (fig. 8) carries a fresco of the Pokrov Mother of God. As mentioned above, the parents of Saint Sergius, Saints Cyril and Mary, withdrew to this monastery in their final years and, obeisant to his behest, for centuries pilgrims on their way to Sergiev Posad would pass by this monastery to pay respect to his parents. More recently, on July 16, 2014, the same ten-mile-long procession opened the 700th Anniversary of Saint Sergius’s birth with thousands of pilgrims venerating the relics of the Radonezh saints in the renovated convent and receiving the blessing of the Mother of God for their journey to the Trinity Lavra to honor Saint Sergius. They followed in the footsteps of past pilgrims, humbly submitting themselves to a Trinitarian life. Polenova adopted the style and figural scene of the Pokrov Mother of God as depicted on the pediment of the Cathedral of the Intercession, which shows

23 On artists’ engagement with the Abramtsevo landscape, see the article by Alison Hilton in this issue. 24 Vasnetsov’s paintings were refused by the railway commission and perhaps also by Titov. See Nina Iaroslavtseva, Moskva Viktora Vasnetsova. Istoriia dushi khudozhnika (Moscow: Novosti, 1998), 98.

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FIGURE 8 Cathedral of the Intercession, Khotkovo PHOTO © 2006 INGE WIERDA the Virgin holding a veil over her outstretched arms. However, the artist framed the scene with a round arch shape rather than a triangle shape and made a clear distinction between an upper and lower scene according to another icon of the same type in the convent, fashioning her own original composition after the Byzantine prototype. Polenova painted the two Johns (the Baptist and the

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Evangelist) indistinctly, flanking the Mother of God in the upper section of the icon. By contrast, the scene below is painted clearly and is divided into two horizontal sections. Romanus Melodus (490-556 AD), the boy in orange, is framed by both the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Byzantine Emperor Anastasius I (430-518 AD) and Empress Ariadne (450-515 AD) while receiving the gift of hymnography from the Mother of God. Below them, Saint Andrew the Fool-in-Christ (956 AD) and his pupil Epiphanius, dressed in blue, are wit- nesses to this gifting in the Church at Blachernae. In 1893, Polenova added another icon to the Abramtsevo Church depicting Saint Theodore, the Prince of Smolensk and Iaroslavl, with his sons David and Constantine, which she framed and adorned in a similar manner as the icon discussed above. Tiny sketches for a Mandylion and an Ascension icon by her hand are also known, but she did not realize them, as religious works of art were atypical for Polenova in contrast to Vasnetsov and her brother, Vasilii.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the legacy of Saint Sergius, the sacred sites on Radonezh soil, and the environs of Abramtsevo attracted and inspired artists in the late- nineteenth century to celebrate their religious heritage and continue to do so to this day.25 The three artworks discussed in this essay—Vasnetsov’s Sаint Sergius and Alenushka and Polenova’s icon of the Pokrov Mother of God—all demonstrate the significance of Radonezh soil in the articulation of a Russian religious identity in the arts of the Abramtsevo circle. In line with Vasnetsov’s artistic credo and the Slavophile heritage, they articulate a “national art” and reveal much of Russia’s “past and present life,” the “men [and women] of Russia” and “their dreams and beliefs.”26 They point towards Saint Sergius’s spiritual path within Russian Orthodoxy and celebrate the central roles of the Christian dogma of the Holy Trinity—embodied by the Sergiev Posad site and Rublev’s famous icon—as well as the key role of the Pokrov [protection] and miracles of the Mother of God on Radonezh soil. Alenushka also tells us of the Russian capacity to suffer and endure.

25 Savva Mamontov, Letopis’, 1870, see Paston, Abramtsevo, 20, and Grigorii Sternin, Russkaia khudozhestvennaia kul’tura vtoroi poloviny XIX-nachala XX veka (Moscow: Izd. neizv., 1984), 187-88. 26 See note 10. Viktor Vasnetsov, letter to Vladimir Stasov, October 7, 1898, cited in Lobanov, Vasnetsov v Abramtseve, 44.

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The legacy of Saint Sergius and of the Abramtsevo circle on Radonezh soil has lost none of its vitality. Indeed, the Khotkovo Art Academy continues to follow in the footsteps of the Abramtsevo circle. In 2000, the artist Valentina Chuharkina created a sculpture after Vasnetsov’s icon of Saint Sergius, which was placed before the Trinity Lavra. Meanwhile, the shrine of Saints Cyril and Mary in the St. Nicholas Cathedral at the Khotkovo Convent has just been renovated, displaying a new icon of the Radonezh saints. Likewise, the fresco of the Pokrov Mother of God on the pediment of the Cathedral of the Intercession has been recently restored and painted by students from the Theological Academy in Sergiev Posad, based on pre-Revolutionary photographs.27 Radonezh soil thus serves as an excellent case study for further research on post-Soviet restoration projects in ecclesiastical art and architecture and on the ways in which they highlight a sense of a renewed cultural identity—a Russian Orthodox identity—which was first articulated by the artists of the Abramtsevo circle over a century ago.

27 The Convent of the Intercession was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1989. After the Bolshevik Revolution it was used as a factory and its icons and frescoes were destroyed. Following the restoration of the churches, new frescoes were added on the exterior and the interior at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

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