Ilya Repin

Hello, Friends!

The St. Petersburg art scene has exploded since I last wrote you.  Years ago now, a few exceptional artists from the Imperial Academy, St. Petersburgs premier, and indeed only, art school, decided they had had enough of the restrictions on what they could and could not paint.  These painters then left the institution and formed their own sort of artists guild, comonly referred to as the Wanderers.  This separation lead to an interesting phenomenon never before seen in Russia, that of private art collections outside of icons.

Several of the wealthy merchants gave purchased vast quantities of the art that is now being produced by these Wanderers.   The paintings they produce are powerful, with much to say about the current state of affairs here in the city and throughout Russia.  The depth and skill these artists have really belies their love for, and interest in, the common people.  The common folk have never been so well represented.

I have recently taken the liberty of exploring several of the private art collections in St. Petersburg, and the messages behind these paintings have not failed to move this old man.  However, one artist stands above the rest in skill and in statement.  That artist is Ilya Repin.  I cannot wait to share with you the wonderful talent of this man, and to ponder with you on the power of his paintings.

 However, I feel to first share with you a little about his life.
Ilya Repin is a man of the people.  He was born a commoner, and began his artistic career painting icons.  However, his talent was soon recognized, and he was accepted at the Imperial Academy, where he graduated in 1878.  He soon after joined the Wanderers (Jackson, 1991).  This ties him closely to the Russian commoners.  He is at home among them, they are his friends and his family.  This provides significant inspiration for his work, as you will see later.

Although his early life may set him apart from many of his contemporary's, what really sets him apart is his work.  The first piece I would like to share with you is Volga Boat Haulers.  In it, Repin provides an insight to the life of the common laborer.  A man at the gallery in which I saw this painting said, "In this substantial canvas, manifestly destined for public exhibition, we see the artist confronting large social issues, contrasting the harsh conditions of the workers with their inexhaustible strength." (Weisberg, 2002)  In it, we can see the weariness of the workers in their posture and into their faces, the barge they struggle to pull looming behind them.

Volga Boat Haulers

You might think that this painting is a direct statement about the oppression of the people.  However, this may not be the case.  The man went on to say, "The content of many canvases remains ambiguous, admitting of no narrowly defined political reading.  As often as not, the artist's comments on the individual canvases centered on painterly rather than ideological problems." (Jackson, 1991)  This tactic of leaving the message of his paintings undefined opened the door for Repin to paint whatever he desired.  Additionally, it gave the observer the freedom to feel however they wanted about the subject matter.  The work became less of a statement, and more an invitation to ponder.

They Did Not Expect Him

As an example of this, Repin's canvas, They Did Not Expect Him, was hotly debated for years.  The painting shows a family sat at dinner who unexpected witness the return of an exiled family member.  Some have argued that, "the exile was a positive figure, someone ready to carry on," seeming to say that the guest looks excited to have arrived at home, while others have said that "Repin 'Despite himself' had painted a broken and repentant individual", (Valkenier, 1978) instead projecting an emotion akin to that of the prodigal son onto the newcomer.  Repin himself has not clarified what he intended, instead leaving it to the observer to feel whatever he wishes in this situation.

Ivan the Terrible

Another of my favorite pieces is a representation of a moment in Russian history, old enough that I had almost forgotten it.  However, upon seeing Repin's beautiful and terrible portrayal, I was flooded by the memories of the incident long past.  The canvas, Ivan the Terrible and His Son, displays a mad and remorseful Tsar Ivan holding his son moments after Ivan had taken his life.  The detail, from the blood stained face of his son to the crazed eyes of the father, is exquisite and unforgiving in their display.  Some have questioned if it is a statement on our current state of affairs, though one wise soul has said, "Unquestionably, there [is] a connection between Repin's art and social protest, but the connection [is] often incidental." (Valkenier, 1978)  Again, Repin has merely put on display a real moment, and left it up to the viewer to decide what it means, though surely the moment is significant.

My final example comes from much later in Repin's life.  With his right hand failing (Jackson, 1991), Repin's life refocused on things of a spiritual nature.  He has painted many scenes from Christ's life, and many others commenting on the Orthodox Church.  Perhaps the most haunting of these pieces is Golgotha, which displays the cross of Christ now empty, still lying between the two thieves.  In the words of a friend, "There is no denying [Repin's] renewed concern for religious subject matter and a personal spiritual reawakening."  (Jackson, 1991).  It seems that, towards the end of his life, Repin's spirit has yearned for something more than what he has. Indeed, it seems that all the Russian people feel the same, though they may search for it in different places.  I can only hope that some few of them may find what they are looking for.

Golgotha

Jackson, David. “The ‘Golgotha’ of Ilya Repin in Context.” Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University, vol. 50, no. 1, 1991, pp. 3–15., www.jstor.org/stable/3774742.

Valkenier, Elizabeth Kridl. “Politics in Russian Art: The Case of Repin.” The Russian Review, vol. 37, no. 1, 1978, pp. 14–29., www.jstor.org/stable/128361.

Weisberg, Gabriel P. “Ilya Repin. Groningen.” The Burlington Magazine, vol. 144, no. 1189, 2002, pp. 252–254., www.jstor.org/stable/889517.

Karenina

Hello, Friends!

Tolstoy dressed in Peasant clothing,
by Ilya Repin (1901)

Once again, St. Petersburg is buzzing with excitement over yet another novel.  It seems to me to be almost over night that these Russians have come to love their own literature.  I certainly wish people had ever been this excited about one of my own stories.  The whole city hums with the noise of people discussing and debating the latest of the instant classics to grace the city, this time, from a fairly well-known author called Lev Tolstoy.  He has before released several books, such as Childhood, though the best known of his prior works is probably War and Peace.  It comes highly recommended, though I have not yet had the chance to read it.  There is simply too much to read these days.  It becomes impossible to keep up.

However, I simply could not pass up Tostoy's latest, Anna Karenina.  As a novel, it is a masterpiece.  As commentary on the upper classes of Russian society, it is deep and full of insight and criticism.  The plot runs roughly that Anna, married to a city official, falls in love with a soldier and begins an affair, during which she becomes pregnant.  After laying low in the country with her lover, Anna eventually returns and is then rejected by high society.  Eventually, the pain and pressure drive her to drastic action.  Through this tale, Tolstoy is able to explore many ideas about justice, love, and high society.  It is indeed a tale unlike any other.

I was recently invited to an estate party where the novel was being discussed.  Many of the good people at the event were debating whether or not Anna deserved the fate that befell her.  One of the guests noted that Anna's choice to engage in an affair was hardly unique at the time, and that many of the nobles who later treat her as a pariah were likely engaged in similar activities (Brown, 2011).  The same friend used Anna's brother, Oblonkskii's own affair as example, noting that his affair is seen as humorous.  This would suggest that Anna takes a worse punishment in being rejected than those of her of her other peers, and even her lover, who are all free to continue to be part of high society.

Anna Karenina

However, another man at the party, one Konstantin, said that he had heard Tolstoy himself say, "...The bad things people do have as their consequence all the bitter things, which come not from people, but from God, and that is what Anna Karenina herself experienced" (Brown, 2011).  If Konstantin is truthful, than it seems Tolstoy has written only what punishment he thinks God would have meted out to Anna, and who can be more just than God?  Certainly, this would find her deserving of her lot.  This thought did not seem to please many of the women in the room.  In either case, Anna Karenina may be used as a prime example of the sorrows that follow the unfaithful.

A younger man, whose name I did not catch, then changed the subject and began discussing Levin, one of the side characters who spends his time on his estate learning from and instructing his serfs.  He summarized an interesting theory that, through Levin, Tostoy was able to show differing thoughts on social hierarchy.  One example can be found in the time Levin took to educate his serfs, elevating them above their normal station.  However, Levin later states that by doing so he made his serfs more efficient, reaping more of a reward for him (De Sherbinn, 2011).  Serfs now are not often highly educated, and doing so flaunts the face of traditional roles between noble and serf.  Levin seeks to elevate those below him, but he still maintains his position as a noble.  I think we shall soon see more of the nobility adopt similar activities.

As the night wore down, I left and returned to my own home.  Along my way, I thought to myself about all I had read recently, and what it could mean for the Russian people.  There is a restlessness to the people.  They write of Nihilism, and of nobility falling from grace.  They write of educating serfs, and of violence and demons.  The literature coming from these Russians is rich beyond my expectations, but still.  I grow uneasy wondering where these thoughts may lead.



Catherine Brown. “Scapegoating, Double-Plotting, and the Justice of Anna Karenina.” The Modern Language Review, vol. 106, no. 1, 2011, pp. 179–194., www.jstor.org/stable/10.5699/modelangrevi.106.1.0179.


DE SHERBININ, JULIE W. "The Dismantling of Hierarchy and the Defense of Social Class in Anna Karenina." Russian Review, vol. 70, no. 4, Oct. 2011, pp. 646-662. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/j.1467-9434.2011.00633.x.

Shadows

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Hello, friends!

I find myself back in St. Petersburg, the hub of the literary world.  With so many wonderful authors publishing so much, I am reminded of my days as a story teller in my homeland of Byzantium.  At this point, Byzantium has been gone so long, I am perhaps more Russian than Byzantine.  Though my birthplace has faded into dust, I have certainly made a wonderful home for myself here.  It is amazing to me the wealth of stories being told by these people who were only a short while ago devoid of any classic tale to call their own.  I could not be more proud of these Russians.  The tales of Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov, and all the rest are so enthralling and insightful.  For such a censored people, they certainly have a lot to say.
However, the subject of these latest novels and short stories have become increasingly dark.

Yesterday, I got into a discussion with a critic for a popular large journal.  He wanted to discuss the musings of Fyodor Dostoyevsky over drinks.  This brilliant man, Dostoevsky, has written many fantastic stories.  His novels, Poor Folk, Crime an Punishment, and The Brothers Karamazov have been wildly successful. One thing that Dostoevsky seems to focus on is the dark side of human reasoning.

This Illustration accompanied Demons,
to show the real demon within.

My new friend, Yuri, had heard of an interesting connection between Dostoevsky's Demons and another book being distributed at the same time called At Daggers Drawn, by Percy.  He described both tales as following Nihilist protagonists who roll into town and bring destruction in their wake.  He seemed to think that this meant that Dostoevsky was taking a less approving stance towards the Nihilist heroes so common to this period, choosing instead to display them as criminals with a lack of morals (Thorstensson, 2016).  These sentiments, while nothing new, are certainly out of the ordinary.  Indeed, it seems as thought Russia herself is headed for Nihilism, though there is much caution she could learn from her authors on the subject.

Indeed, my friend said, evidence for this darker side of Nihilism could be found throughout Dostoevsky's works.  He said, " Dostoevsky anticipated these consequences in his focus on murder and suicide (Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, Demons), sexual perversion and child/adolescent abuse (Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, Demons)" (Desmond 2012).  It would certainly seem, I agreed, that he doesn't seem to trust these Nihilists very much.  He seems under the impression that their lack of established moral standard will not set strong foundations for peace, wealth, or safety.

A scene from the Brothers Karamazov, in which a trial is taking place to solve the murder of Fyodor Karamazov,
Father of the family.  It is later decided that each of his sons played a roll in his death.

My newfound friend seemed to find some irony in that thought.  He stated that in Dostoevsky's The Brother's Karamazov, the character Ivan becomes a type of Nihilist, basing his beliefs on the observable and rejecting the orthodox beliefs of his brother because of the trials faced by the young in this life already (Desmond, 2012).  With such suffering permitted to happen in the world, Ivan has decided that there could be no God who would allow it.  Thus, the perceived absence of God creates the space for such a decline in the first place.

I pondered this quite a great deal as I made my way home.  My roots are still in Byzantium, and in Christianity, but I have seen much, and the arguments behind this Nihilist movement are hard to ignore.  Their science certainly provided much good, and they advocate for the rights of the common man.  However, when all things are permitted, what is there to stop those, or even to condemn those, who commit such atrocities?  Surely, my old mind is too old for this new world.






Desmond, John F. "Fyodor Dostoevsky, Walker Percy and the Demonic Self." The Southern Literary Journal, no. 2, 2012, p. 88. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.uvu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsglr&AN=edsgcl.293240138&site=eds-live.

Thorstensson, Victoria. "The Inkwell of the Russian Messenger: Editorial Politics and the Serialization of Dostoevsky's Demons and Leskov's at Daggers Drawn." Russian Review, vol. 75, no. 1, Jan. 2016, pp. 26-50. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.uvu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2016830390&site=eds-live

Fathers and Sons

Hello, friends!

When last I wrote, I was writing from the estate of Nikolai Gogol, poet, and author of The Nose and Dead Souls.  He and I had many wonderful, albeit odd, conversations regarding his works.  It would seem, however, that the death of Pushkin still weighs heavily on my friend, for his spirit has sunk even lower than it usually sits.  He has taken up the counsel of a holy fool, except to me his teachings seem a bit extreme.  Gogol has even begun to question his work, and has even begun to deprive himself of worldly pleasures.  There's nothing wrong with the occasional drink in my book, so I thought it wise for me to make myself welcome elsewhere.

Ivan Turgenev, and yes,
he always looks this stern.

During my travels, I had the good fortune to stumble upon a recently published novel by Ivan Turgenev.  I had not been much acquainted with Turgenev's work before this point, but the book came highly recommended in the thick books I had read while staying with Gogol.  This particular novel, entitled Fathers and Sons, has been an interesting contrast for me, coming directly from Gogol's newfound ascetic belief system to this treatise on belief in general.

What's more, as I was finishing the book on the train, two men took the seats across from me and began to comment on novel.  They had such interesting views, I thought to sit and just absorb their discussion, though they soon pulled me in to settle disputes between them.  In return for their thoughts, I agreed to buy drinks, and what followed was a lively discussion.

An Original Copy of Fathers and Sons

The first, Viktor, talked much about how he thought the main point of the novel was "The conflict between the generations," (Lowe, 1982) detailing how the main plot of the book followed Arkady Kirsanov and his friend, Yevgeny Bazarov as they come home from Univeristy, and the challenges that arise between them and Arkady's father, Nikolai Kirsanov and his traditional values.  Viktor pointed out that there seems to be some pairing that occurs at the start of the novel, with those of each generation and social level being introduced together at the start of the novel to frame the conflict, (Lowe, 1982).  The image then came to me of two armies, one old, one young approaching each other across a battlefield of concept.

However, at that point, Aleksei pointed out that the pairings seemed shallow to him.  Those pairings, based on ideals, don't really create the conflict.  Rather, Aleksei said, "The conflicts in the novel are the result of differences or similarities in temperament" (Lowe, 1982).   To illustrate this, he outlined the characteristics of Pavel, Aleksei's uncle, and Bazarov as men who are expressionless amongst their elders, except in bursts of radical thinking.  He even suggested that their characters follow similar arcs throughout the novel.  Both Pavel and Bazarov were radicals of their respective generations, Bazarov as a Nihilist and Pavel as a Liberal.

A fictional portrait of Bazarov

The conversation at this point took an unexpected turn as Viktor began to back down from his original arguments, but then came forward with altogether new ideas, exploring the concepts of regeneration and degeneration as displayed by the cast of Turgenev's book.  For train of thought, he compared Nikolai Kirsanov with Bazarov.  Of Nikolai, he said, "Nikolai's capacity for memory enables him to sense life's continuities. . .Because of his memory, Nikolai understands the emotions and attitudes not only of his own generation, but of his son's" (Atteberry, 1988).  On the other hand, of Bazarov, he said, "[His] dispair stems, in part, from an absence of memory," referring to Bazarov's hopeless goodbye to Odintsov, his brief love.  I had not even considered such a comparison prior to this conversation, though it did strike a thought that had been with me since I had finished the book.

Having only recently left the home of Gogol, I could not help but feel the opposition between his current way of thinking and that of Bazarov.  Turgenev referred to Bazarov as a Nihilist, a term I had not heard before.  However, I think that almost everyone has met one.  They are, as one of my train-mates put it, "...Neither familiar with, nor interested in learning the 'old' abstract and philosophical chitchat. . . Who Believes in utility, science, and the ability to impose arithmetical calculation on all social problems," (Dubnov, 2015).  In short, they do not believe in anything they cannot examine or control with their senses.  This firm disbelief is so different from the repentant soul of someone like Gogol.  At first it may seem admirable, but for Bazarov, it became his doom.  I begin to admire these Nihilists for all they could accomplish, and yet worry at what price they may have to pay.



Sources:
Atteberry, Phillip D. “Regenerative and Degenerative Forces in Turgenev's ‘Fathers and Sons.’” South Central Review, vol. 5, no. 1, 1988, pp. 48–60., www.jstor.org/stable/3189433.

Dubnov, Arie M. "‘Those New Men of the Sixties’: Nihilism in the Liberal Imagination." ["Rethinking History"]. Rethinking History, vol. 19, no. 1, Mar. 2015, pp. 18-40. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.uvu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=khh&AN=99979692&site=eds-live.

Lowe, David A. "Doubling in Turgenev's Fathers and Sons." Essays in Literature, vol. 9, no. 2, Fall  1982, pp. 240-250. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.uvu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=prf&AN=24389297&site=eds-live.

The Nose Knows

Hello, Friends!

It has not been long since the death of my dear friend, Pushkin.  It has been hard on us all.  Indeed, Russia lost her premier poet.  The loss of him still echoes down the streets and through the minds and hearts of the people who so loved him.  In the pubs which I have frequented, hardly a night goes by without at least half a dozen toasts being raised in his name.

A Portrait of Gogol

Since his death, I have once again become acquainted with the group of story tellers with whom he associated.  One in particular of his colleagues has a style of story that seems to me most appropriate in these dark and upsetting times.  Nikolai Gogol has knack for the disturbing and fantastical that suits my dark mood as of late.  Furthermore, it was my pleasure to have stayed with him on his estate to proofread some of his upcoming work and to learn more about the man himself.

To say that Gogol is a strange fellow would not be off course, though I do feel that it fails to encapsulate the experience of interacting with him.  In speaking with him, I was able to learn some of his incidental history.  He was born in Ukraine under the name Nikolai Ianovskii in 1810, and later transplanted himself into St. Petersburg, bypassing Moscow so as not to ruin the experience ( Davydov, 2006).  Furthermore, he said to me that he found Petersburg to be underwhelming upon his arrival, though I can't imagine to what he was comparing it.  He simply said he thought it would be less dark and gloomy.

Kovalev, face to face with his Nose

Despite the lack of festive spirit, Gogol has managed to find in the daily grindings of the common people a character to use in his tales.  Seemingly based on his own experience, he has fashioned a character so thoroughly unremarkable that he might easily be anyone's uncle or father.  A simple clerk, to whom any could relate or pity (Davydov, 2006).  However, it is the situations that these little men find themselves in that makes his tales remarkable.  His tales have included a man who collects the rights to the names of dead serfs, a man so obsessed with his new coat and being respected that he ends up haunting the streets of St. Petersburg stealing coats after death, and even a man who must compete with his own nose.

The final tale being my favorite, I feel I must give it a special treatise.  In the beginning, Kovalev wakes at the changing of the calendar (Seifrid, 1993) to find that his nose has departed from his face and become its own being.  He then embarks on a great search for the missing feature, enlisting the help of the police and other city offices in his endeavor.  It is later found that the nose had left, probably due to the regularly occurring trips Kovalev had been taking to the barber, at which points his nose was subjected to foul smelling ointments the barber used on Kovalev's face.  After a few weeks, the nose appears back on his face without explanation.

What is fascinating about the tale, besides the adventure and strangeness of it all, is how the story has been left open for interpretation.  Rarely have any of my stories been so odd and yet subtle with their message so as to leave room for so many directions of thought.  One man I talked to insisted that the lack of focus on smells in this story about a nose was as significant as representing the influence of the west, stating that, "Seen in this context, 'The Nose' actualizes strinkingly well the locus of Gogol's reaction to the relationships that were beginning to materialize at the time among the Imperial government, medical science, hygiene, and olfaction." (Klymentiev, 2009)  With the destruction of smells symbolizing the increase of western influence, the book does take on a certain slavophile tone.

Meanwhile, another friend I met at a pub thought of the book entirely differently.  He told me over drinks that he thought the major message was one of mistaken identity, or rather, missing identity (Seifrid, 1993).  He examined the nose not knowing its place, as well as many people changing their title by switching between the military and civilian tiers of ranking.  He continued to talk at length about how the book seemed to purposefully remove truth from symbol.  Most people seem to think that Gogol was making some kind of statement about the European influence on this country.  However, I can't help but wonder if Gogol was really purposefully considering all of this, or if he simply wanted to write a story about how insecure he felt about his nose.

Davydov, Sergei. "Gogol's Petersburg." New England Review (10531297), vol. 27, no. 1, Winter2006, pp. 122-127. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.uvu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=19983812&site=eds-live.

Klymentiev, Maksym. "The Dark Side of 'The Nose': The Paradigms of Olfactory Perception in Gogol''s 'The Nose'." Canadian Slavonic Papers / Revue Canadienne Des Slavistes, no. 2/3, 2009, p. 223. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.uvu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.40871408&site=eds-live.

Seifrid, Thomas. "Suspicion toward Narrative: The Nose and the Problem of Autonomy in Gogol's 'Nos'." The Russian Review, no. 3, 1993, p. 382. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.uvu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.10.2307.130737&site=eds-live.