Transcript An Intimate Portrait of the Soviet Union: A Political and

The Currier Gallery of Art
From Gulag to Glasnost:Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union 1956 - 1986
March 17 - June 10
Three-Part Lecture Series :
"An Intimate Portrait of the
Soviet Union: A Political
and Cultural View"
This three-part lecture
series offered in
conjunction with the
Educational Continuum at
New Hampshire College
will explore the complex
web of Russian culture as
evidenced in its history,
traditions, religions, and
political systems.
Join Lyra Riabov of the New
Hampshire College faculty as
she examines the social and
political environment in the
Soviet Union to which the nonconformist artists responded.
Professor Riabov will discuss
the role of avant-garde art in
the human rights movement in
the pre-Gorbachev Soviet
Union. Having lived in Russia
until 1982, Lyra will also share
her personal stories and
memories of the artists and
society of the era examined in
From Gulag to Glasnost:
Nonconformist Art from the
Soviet Union 1956-1986.
An Intimate Portrait of the
Soviet Union: A Political and
Cultural View
Lyra Riabov
Associate Professor
Southern New Hampshire University
Art as a Mirror of the
Russian /Soviet Society
A Cultural & Historical Overview
Lecture 1
April 5, 2001
Lyra Riabov
Associate Professor
Southern New Hampshire University
11th – 18th Centuries
Christianity
Icons
Painters
Schools
Architecture
Folk Art
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Theophanes the Greek
c. 1330 - c.1410
Andrei Rublev
c.1370 - c. 1430
Dionisii or Dionysius
c. 1440 - c. 1510
Kiev School
Novgorod School
Moscow School
Pskov School
The Battle Between
the Novgorodians
and the Suzdalians
Novgorod School,
circa 1450-1475
Russian Enamels
(Finift)
Victor Vasnetsov
Ivan the Terrible
Church of Intercession-on-Nerl
12th Century
Rostov Kremlin
17th Century
Northern Russian Architecture, 17th Century, Kizhi
Russian Architecture, 16th - 18th Centuries
PETER THE GREAT 1672-1725
CATHERINE THE GREAT 1729-1796
St. Petersburg & Peterhof, 18th - 19th Centuries
Palaces of St. Petersburg, 18th - 19th Centuries
Orest Kiprensky (1782-1836)
Alexander Pushkin
Evgraf Davydov
Argunov: Portrait of a Peasant Woman in Russian Costume (1784)
Nikolai Alexeev: A Young Girl in Russian Costume (1837)
Karl Brullov (1799-1852)
Self-portrait & The Last Day Of Pompeii (Detail)
Ivan Kramskoy (1837-1887)
Leo Tolstoy
Christ in the Wilderness
Nikolai Ge (1831-1894)
What is Truth?
Peter is Interrogating his Son Alexis
Ilya Repin (1844-1930)
Aivazovsky, Savrasov, Arkhipov, Kuindzhi, Kustodiev
(19th – 20th Centuries)
Serov, Levitan, Miasoedov
19th – 20th Centuries
Andrei Ryabushkin (1861-1904)
Seventeenth Century Women in Church (1899)
Russian Dance (1902)
Alexander Benois
Stage Design for "Petrushka" (1911)
Nathan Altman: Portrait of Anna Akhmatova (1914)
Zinaida Serebryakova: Self-portrait at the Dressing Table (1909)
Nathan Altman (1920)
Olga Rozanova (1915)
Russian Art of the Early 20th Century
Sergei Gerasimov
Arkady Rylov
Master of the Land (1918)
Sunset (1917)
Mark Chagall
The Artist's Father (1914)
Self-portrait
The Red Jew (1915)
Mark Chagall
Window in a Dacha (1915)
Wedding (1910)
Natalia Goncharova
Harvest (late 1900)
Dancing Peasants (1911)
Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin
Bathing the Red Horse (1912)
Mikula Selyaninovich (1918)
Nikolai Roerich (1874-1947)
Mikula Selyaninovich (1909)
Vasily Kandinsky (1844-1944)
The Volga Song
•1923
Composition
Vladimir Lebedev (1920s)
Kasimir Malevich (1878-1935)
An Englishman in Moscow
PETROV- VODKIN
Herring (1918)
“Defend Petrograd” (1918)
“Comrade Lenin Sweeps the Globe Clean” (1920)
“The Illiterate” (1920)
“March 8, Women's Emancipation” (1920)
"Mothers of the World“(1958); "Lenin's Dreams" (1961)
“Army" (1982); "Army and People" (1988)
Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin
The Year 1918 in Petrograd (1920)
Discussion of the Cultural and Artistic
Milieu of 1950s-1980s in the USSR
A Cultural & Political Overview
Lecture 2
April 12, 2001
Lyra Riabov
Associate Professor
Southern New Hampshire University
Nathan Altman: Portrait of Anna Akhmatova (1914)
Intensity of Spiritual life in
Leningrad
1970-1982
A Personal View
Lecture 3
Lyra Riabov
Associate Professor
Southern New Hampshire University
New Hampshire Colleges in
RUSSIA
1965-1982
New Hampshire College
Meets Russia in1970
Although I came from
Leningrad (St.Petersburg),
USSR to the USA and to
NHC in 1982, my story and
the relationship with the
college, its faculty and
students had begun more
than 10 years earlier.
Few people in our college community know
about brave endeavors of our faculty, their
family members, and students who went to
the USSR in 1970s and early 1980s to get a
first hand experience of the life in the
Communist Russia. They met with their
Soviet colleagues, shared their thoughts,
had fun, and came very close with the
Human Rights movement of that time in the
USSR.
The New York Times
August 16,1965
“An experiment that may eventually involve an annual
exchange of thousands of Americans and Soviet
citizens began in the early hours yesterday. A group
of 140 Americans representing a cross section of
American society took a plane for Moscow to spend
three weeks in the Soviet Union with their
counterparts in their professions and trades… The
Citizens Exchange Corp, a nonprofit foundation was
organized by Stephen D. James, a writer from the
Bronx, who believed that only through knowing each
other could the Americans and Soviet people avoid a
disastrous collision.”
The Union Leader
August 9,1965
“Over the years, this newspaper made it
abundantly clear that we look with skepticism
and considerable distaste on so-called
cultural exchanges with the Soviet Union…
The tourists will not be permitted to look
behind the scenes and the natives cannot be
expected to bare their souls to complete
strangers. Thus the tourists, who like to think
of themselves… as good-will ambassadors
– will not be permitted to assess… these
unfortunate people.”
The Manchester Area Participants
1. Mervin Weston of Bedford
2. Mr./Mrs. Philip Caplain of
Bedford
3. Miss Sandra Wilcher
4. Prof./Mrs. John
Windhausen of St. Anselm
College
5. Mr./Mrs. Bill Green and son
6. Dr. John W. Parfitt
7. Mr. Gordon of Brookline,
Mass.
“You are about to take part in
one of the most meaningful
journeys of our lifetime.
Those exchangees who
follow us will be better
prepared by our experiences;
however, we will have been
the pioneers. As you know,
our exchange is unique in
that its purpose is to bring
people together on a scale so
massive that it will promote
understanding and in turn
improve the climate for
disarmament.” July 2 1965,
Mr. David Fleischmann,
Executive Secretary of
Citizens Exchange Corp.
The Pioneers
Following that
pioneer trip, Prof.
John Windhausen of
St. Anselm College
in Manchester, NH
would bring students
and educators to the
Soviet Union almost
every year.
What Was the Time?
• 1961 – Berlin Wall
was built
• 1962 – Cuban
Missile Crisis
• 1962 – 1975 – Viet
Nam War
Person-to-Person Tours
Academic Program
In 1976 NHC and St.
Anselm College have
developed an academic
program for Person-toPerson Tours, in
conjunction with
International Faculty
Associates. Participants of
those study groups as well
as many other Americans
visited me in my home in
Leningrad, met with my
students, exchanged
ideas, and built long
lasting friendships.
Prof. John Windhausen,
American & Russian Friends
at Lyra’s Home in Leningrad.
Prof. John Windhausen and the Participants of the First
Groups Meet Lyra and her Friends in Leningrad
(1969-1970)
Dr. James Grace, Academic Dean, and NHC
Students are Preparing for the First Trip to
Russia (1976)
Flight to Russia (1978)
Lyra, her twin daughters, and her students are
waiting for the arrival of the NHC friends
(Leningrad, 1976)
Jim Grace and John Windhausen at
Lyra’s Home in Leningrad (1976)
Dr. Jim Grace and Rabbi Arthur Star meet in Lyra’s
home with her students.(1970s).
NHC group at Lyra’s Home in
Leningrad, 1978
Chris Toy, a Member of the NHC
Group, is in Moscow (1976)
NHC group visits a Soviet
School
NHC Students and Soviet
Pioneers are in a Moscow Street
NHC groups visit
Smolny and
Battleship Aurora
in Leningrad, and
Cosmos Pavilion in
Moscow.
Art Exhibition in Manezh
Leningrad, 1971. Photo by Vlad Ovchinnikov
Evgenii Rukhin
1943-1976
Ernst Neizvestny (b. 1925)
"Head"
- Confrontation with Khrushchev (1962),
- The peak of prominence in the 1960s,
- Emigrated in 1976.
Anatolii Kaplan (1902-1980)
"Les Fiancés"
- Portrayed the traditions of Jewish
people.
Lyra at the Chemiakin Exhibition at
Georgii Mikhailov’s Apartment in St.
Petersburg in 1978
Igor Spadaruck,
“Portrait of G. Mikhailov”
Alexander Issachev
Prophet (1976)
Apostle Peter (1977)
Irena Baskina & Lyra
St. Petersburg, 1978
Paris, 1986
Paris, 2000
Rabbi Star at Lyra’s Home
Discussions in Lyra’s Home
Lyra’s House in Leningrad
More than 2000 people met in this house during 1970s. They studied English, celebrated
religious holidays, exchanged information and ideas,supported each other and those who were
rejected by the communist society and its government. Here they felt free and could share their
dreams and aspirations. Here they planed their future in the pursuit of happiness which most of
them found either abroad or later in New Russia.