Bridgewater Review

Volume 30 | Issue 2 Article 6

Dec-2011 Through the Russian Gaze: in Yulia Stakhnevich Bridgewater State University, [email protected]

Recommended Citation Stakhnevich, Yulia (2011). Mexico Through the Russian Gaze: Olga Costa in Guanajuato. Bridgewater Review, 30(2), 10-13. Available at: http://vc.bridgew.edu/br_rev/vol30/iss2/6

This item is available as part of Virtual Commons, the open-access institutional repository of Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts. did she ever experience Russian toska ? Although somewhat ambiguous in meaning, тоска [toska] permeates Russian worldview on many levels and is often connected to the feelings of displacement and loss. Vladimir Nabokov best described in it in his Commentary to Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin : “No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deep - est and most painful, it is a sensa - tion of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels, it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases, it maybe the desire for somebody or something Costa, Olga. Vendedora de frutas . 1951. Oil on canvas.The , . specific, nostalgia, lovesickness. At the lowest level, it grades into MexicoThrough the Russian Gaze: ennui, boredom.” Being Russian myself, I am not inocu - Olga Costa in Guanajuato lated against the occasional bouts of Yulia Stakhnevich toska, and towards the middle of my n 2003, I went to the Mexican town of Guanajuato stay in Guanajuato, I realized that I might have been suffering from it to work on my Spanish.What made this trip also.The desire to establish a personal memorable though was not the learning of Spanish, connection to a new country while I renewing my links to my first language but a serendipitous encounter with the legacy of and culture led me serendipitously to a Olga Costa, a Mexican artist of Russian descent. further exploration of Olga Costa’s life. I arrived in Guanajuato in early May at to do. I practiced my Spanish, learned Born in 1913 to Jacob Kostakowsky the end of the dry season. Everything how to dance salsa, took classes in and Ana Fabricant, émigrés from was covered with a thin layer of dust. cooking, and made new friends, both Odessa, then tsarist Russia, her journey Vegetation had turned grey, and temper - Mexican and expatriate. exemplifies the complexity of connec - atures never went below 90 degrees. tions between creativity and one’s first I have to admit that initially I didn’t pay When I was leaving in late July, the rainy language and culture, a topic that has a too much attention to accounts of the season was in full swing: torrential rains deeply personal meaning to me as an sightings of rare and exotic Russians in came in the afternoons washing down immigrant. Issues of identity and the middle of Mexico: after all, when the streets and making the trees and the creativity, of course, transcend the you travel, you want to learn something bushes green and lush again. Regardless personal; they have a broader political new, experience things that take you out of the season, for someone like myself appeal. For instance, recently Russia has of your routine. But as time went by, I who was born and raised in the urban been attempting to reclaim the cultural couldn’t stop thinking about the strange jungle of Moscow, Guanajuato felt legacy of Russian artists displaced by Russian woman my hosts mentioned in magical. It struck me as a place where twentieth century politics and war. conversations.What intrigued me about time stood still, where people moved Russians have long had a deeply rooted her was that she was not a transient visi - at a leisurely pace, and leaving your belief that although creativity is individ - tor; she came to Guanajuato and stayed. guidebook behind was the right thing ual, it must be fed by the artist’s native How and why did that happen? And

10 Bridgewater Review milieu and that maintaining a strong and wife in Russian.The choice of the the League of Nations afterWorldWar I connection to Russian culture and language is a powerful tribute to the to stateless persons. language is necessary for the expression significance that the Russian language The transition to their new country of Russian creativity. had for Olga’s parents: it was the lan - was not smooth.Their luggage, consist - guage of intimacy, of remembrance. This view, no matter how naïve, is so ing of books, musical notations, Jacob’s prevalent in the Russian psyche that After the amnesty, the family reunited finished and unfinished compositions, it has always played a role in how the in where Russianness was in the and his cherished violin, all mysteriously Russian public viewed artists in self- air: it was in the food stores, bookstalls, disappeared at customs, leaving the imposed or government-sponsored coffee shops, and in the music halls family stranded in the port city with exiles: with pity, sorrow, or disdain. where her father worked. But by 1925, limited financial resources and no Although some might question Olga’s the German economy was improving, skills. Russianness by pointing out that she making life more expensive for Russian In their first days in Mexico, the was born in , soon after her émigrés.The result was devastating to Kostakowsky family experienced differ - birth the family moved from the Russian community with many ent aspects of their new surroundings. to Berlin, which at that time became choosing to leave Berlin for Paris, The parents had to garner assistance the cultural capital of the Russian NewYork, or elsewhere. For the from the German Consulate to ensure expatriate community. Kostakowsky family that elsewhere family subsistence and were engaged in was Mexico, the country that Lya Olga’s father, a professional musician, frustrating and ultimately unsuccessful Cardoza later described as “país revolu - actively participated in the Bavarian communications with customs officials cionario y lleno de nuevos horizontes” Socialist Revolution in 1919 and, after about their lost or stolen luggage.They (“a revolutionary country full of new its defeat, was incarcerated but escaped also fretted about train bandits and sent horizons”).The family began their the fate of hundreds who were exe - telegrams imploring relatives to wire transatlantic voyage in the French port cuted. According to Lya Cardoza (Olga’s money to help pay the family’s fare to of Saint-Nazaire where they boarded younger sister), as a reminder of his time Mexico City. Meanwhile, Olga and the vessel “Espagne,” arriving in the in prison, he always carried a pocket her sister marveled at the strange new Mexican port ofVeracruz on the seventh watch on which he had scratched the vibrant colors of Mexico. In contrast of September in 1925.They carried names of his (then only daughter), Olga, to monochromatic Berlin, Nansen passports, which were issued by instantly overwhelmed them with its array of tropical flowers, dark-skinned people, soft, lush breezes of the ocean carrying new scents, brightly robed vendedores selling strange and exotic fruits, and the rolling sounds of Spanish that they heard from street vendors and the maids at the hotel. In his monograph on Olga Costa, Sergio Pitol quotes (in translation) Olga’s recollections of that first month inVeracruz. “We arrived inVeracruz during the strike of tenant farmers.The city was covered with red and black flags. For me everything stood out: houses with wooden windows painted in green, the appearance of the people, the movement of air at dusk, the sky that sometimes became all black with vultures, the insects, the bread.The first time Costa, Olga. Untitled . 1936. Oil on board. Author’s collection.

December 2011 11 that I entered the bathroom I dis - “The country of red flowers, In her later paintings Olga drew both covered in the bathtub a huge black discovered in a mind intoxicated from her initial impressions of Mexico tarantula. Also I remember a maid by the Sun and enamored of the and made artistic references to the at the hotel; she was tall and skinny Moon, and the Evening Star, the imagery conjured up by Balmont: “the and always wore a dress of yellow Morning Star. A country of multi - country of red flowers” lived on in many stiff muslin; in the mouth sparkled a colored flowers and of birds with of her paintings, especially in landscapes gold tooth.With a cigarette in one bright feathers, azure, green, the and still lifes. In her interviews, she indi - hand and chamber pots from the shade of all precious stones. A cated that the impressions of seeing the rooms in the other, she walked in country of bloody spectacles and unspoiled beauty of Mexico stayed with the hallway like a queen.” of refined reverence, of legends her throughout her life and influenced truthful and of reality improbable, her work. For example, Olga’s most Although the Kostakowskys’ impres - of colorful hieroglyphs and pyra - famous painting, Vendedora de frutas sions of Mexico were personal, it stands mid-shaped cathedrals, of slow (Female Fruit Seller) from 1951 cele - to reason that they were also influenced words and the quick knife, of brates a traditional market scene, using by the popular writings of Konstantin eternal Spring-eternal Autumn. bright colors and featuring a cornucopia Balmont, a famous Russian symbolist A country whose history is a tale, of fruit.The depiction of the seller her - poet who visited Mexico in 1905. He whose fate is a sad poem, sadder self is reminiscent of the maid at the was one of the first Russian authors to than a poem by Edgar Allen Poe. hotel that Olga admired inVeracruz. visit Mexico and published his travel A country deceptive, betrayed, The artist recognizes the same strength journal Путевые письма (Letters from the sold-out, conquered by prophecy, of spirit and dignity beyond the subject’s Road ), several essays and poems, and by a genius, by a woman, by a humble station in life and paints her not translations of Mexican myths, all of horse, mutilated irretrievably by as a subservient being, but as someone which were widely popular among a pale-faced centaur, carrying with queen like qualities. Russian armchair travelers. destruction, devastation, and a Olga herself was not as bold.While her With Olga’s parents being highly hypocritical religion, along with parents encouraged her to take courses educated, it is likely that they read deadly contagious diseases, every - in piano and voice to follow her father’s Balmont’s works and might have shared where he penetrates – to India, to profession, she chose to pursue her them with the children, pointing out Oceania, to the Peruvian idyll, and natural predilection for painting: “ Me the amazing things they all were about to this downtrodden Country of daba miedo tocar o cantar en púlico. La pin - to encounter in the new land: Red Flowers.” tura por el contrario es un trabajo solitario ” (I was scared to play or sing in public. Painting, on the other hand, is a solitary profession.) And when Olga saw ’s murals for the first time, she was so transfixed by the colors that, as she put it, the music ceased to exist. Olga entered the famous Academia de San Carlos .There her teacher was Carlos Mérida, a famous Guatemalan artist, who referred to her as “ el ángel blanco de la pintura mexicana ” (“white angel of Mexican painting”). A favorable comment on the surface, this definition stuck, identifying her as a Mexican by inclination, yet the “other” by birth. This duality, though subtle, separated her from native-born artists; however, Olga never discussed it in any of her interviews.

Costa, Olga. Untitled . 1971. Oil on board. Author’s collection.

12 Bridgewater Review In the Academy, Olga took a lithography the pantheon of foreign artists whom class, in which she met her future hus - Russia recognized as her own. band, José Chávez Morado. A promising Conversely, in Guanajuato she was rec - student, she had to drop out because ognized as a respected Mexican painter of financial difficulties. In 1935 she got and a patroness of Mexican art, a person married, a happy union that lasted 58 born outside of Mexico, but who loved years. Her husband came from a well- and cared for the people of her adoptive to-do and respected Mexican family, homeland. In Olga’s case, a key to and by the time of their marriage his her Mexicanness might have been a career as an artist (particularly as a combination of her talent, genuine muralist) was flourishing. On the mar - interest in her new country, and courage riage license, Olga still used her maiden to claim her desired identity by estab - name, but soon afterwards she chose to lishing and maintaining meaningful Mexicanize it to a more conventional relationships with those whose cultural Spanish name, Costa. Surrounded by Olga Costa at the patio of her house in Guanajuato, ties to Mexico were never disputed. many artisans, Olga returned to painting. Mexico. Photograph taken by Flor Garduño. She referred to her first attempts as Matters of nationality and ethnicity are “pininos ”, a word with no English It contains the couple’s furniture, often painfully private, and we might equivalent, but which may be translated objects of art, mostly within Mexican never know if Olga was susceptible to in this context as ‘dabbling’ in painting. indigenous and folk art traditions as the bouts of infamous Russian ‘toska’. This initially idle pastime became a well as works by both artists.The couple What we do know is that although her professional career that lasted a lifetime. made significant contributions to several Russian roots were buried, under close Olga preferred to stay away from the museums in Guanajuato and were well- examination they can still be traced in rough and tumble street politics, but known and respected in the city. her art. Does that make her Russian? her art reflected the on-going debate Only Olga would have been able to After returning from Guanajuato, I had about the definition of mexicanidad , or answer this question.What we can say not thought about Olga Costa for some what constituted an authentic Mexican with certainty though is that she was time, until I had an opportunity to visit identity. Many of her paintings are done successful at overcoming feelings of dis - the Russian State Library in Moscow. in the costumbrista style that celebrates placement and loss inherent in the The Library established a special collec - both the indigenous and experience of immigration by actively tion about artists who worked abroad. elements in Mexican culture. and genuinely engaging with her adop - The collection is known as Русское tive land. For those of us, including After living in Mexico City for many зарубежье [Russian foreign lands]. The myself, who move beyond the borders years, in 1955 Olga and José chose to foundation of such a collection was a of the familiar and have to constantly move to the town of Guanajuato where major step in accepting the complex reinvent ourselves, Olga’s life will they established a permanent residence. nature of creativity across national bor - remain an inspiration, an example of They purchased a house in the Pastita ders. Nonetheless, even the title of the achieving equilibrium, of finding a new neighborhood with vistas of surround - collection indicates certain proprietary home and yet remaining true to oneself. ing mountains.The house was a part of rights that the state-owned library the seventeenth century de claims to have on the individuals’ Yulia Stakhnevic is an Associate Professor in Guadalupe , and the couple bought it creative work if their contributions the English Department. with an idea to restore and to use it were to be included in the collection. both as their home and studio space. I was curious to find out if anything This became the place where Olga at all was known about Olga’s life and painted many of her later pieces. In artistic legacy in her ancestral country. her spare time, she established a lovely After several days of going through old- garden, and that’s where, in 1993 her fashioned card catalogues and speaking husband had her ashes interred.The with several librarians, it became house became the Museo-Casa Olga clear that the existence of the whole Costa-José Chávez Morado , a museum Kostakowsky family with their artistic that opened its doors after Olga’s death. contributions remained unknown in Russia. Olga was not admitted into

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