Modernism

in Russia

Simone Greenup and Caleb Louque

Modernism Emerges
• Located between the 1890s and the early 1930s, Russian Modernism arose as a rejection of positivism
and the rejection of realism.
• Russian creative artists of this time were influenced by and often themselves influenced West European
and American modernism.
• There were two generations of Russian Modernism. The first modernist movement revolved around
Russian symbolism. For the second generation of modernists or futurists, the word "modern" was
associated with the decadent and the exclusive.
• The easiest way to classify symbolism and futurism is to separate Russian Modernism into two
chronological periods: the "modern" and the "Avant-Garde."
• Despite Russia's crucial role in the development of Russian art and literature, it is still not widely
appreciated. In fact, it was not deemed to have existed at all in official Soviet cultural histories. For
example, in the Soviet Literary Encyclopedia, an entry titled "Modernism" simply reads "See:
Symbolism"
Museums and Cities
• Moscow and St. Petersburg were significant in fostering and showcasing the innovative works of the
modernist movement in Russia. Each environment, including two museums in St. Petersburg, provided a
platform for artists to experiment with new ideas and forms, contributing to the rich tapestry of Russian
Modernism.
• Moscow: Between 1910 and 1914, Moscow became an international center for progressive avant-
garde art ideas, then also being shared in Munich, Vienna, and Paris.
• St. Petersburg:
The Russian State Museum in St. Petersburg opened in 1898 and is the largest collection of Russian art. It
houses the work of Russian modernists such as Kandinsky, Natalia Goncharova, and Kasimir Severinovich
Malevich, among other key figures of the Russian modernist movement.
The Hermitage, also located in St. Petersburg, is one of the oldest and largest museums in the world.
Founded in 1764, the Hermitage has a vast collection of art and culture, including works from the
modernist period.
Modernist Exhibitions
• A few exhibitions by groups (with somewhat unusual names) are central to the
progression of the avant-garde in Russia. These exhibitions were organized by the
"Jack of Diamonds" group which show-cased a wide variety of German and French
art, as well as Wassily Kandinsky.
• March 1912, there was an exhibition of "The Donkey's Tail group. The Donkey's
Tail was the first to both assert an independent Russian school of art-making and
bring together the artists who would be the "big four" of Russian Art: Mikhail
Larionov, Natalia Goncharova, Kasimir Malevich, and Vladimir Tatlin.
• The Donkey's Tail group changed their name to "The Target" and held an exhibition
in 1913 that showed the growing diversity of abstract painting in Russia. It also
introduced Goncharova's new short-lived "Rayist" painting style, which looked
similar to Analytic Cubism.
 Dimitri
Merezhkovsky (1865-
1941)
• Merezhkovsky, a Russian writer and poet, is credited as the founder of
the Symbolist movement in Russian literature, and later, art. In 1893, he
published his book On the Reasons for the Decline of and on New
Currents in Contemporary Russian Literature, the first "manifesto" of
Russian symbolism.
• His book signaled a protest against the radical Russian Intelligentsia,
the upper-classes who dominated the Russian literature scene at the
time and sought to intertwine art and literature with politics.
• Both Merezhkovsky and his wife, Zinaida Gippius, had
numerous proteges composed of symbolist poets, critics, artists, and
novelists who spread modernism throughout Russia over the next few
years.
• Like many other Russian modernists, Merezhkovsky was forced into
exile twice until his eventual departure from Russia with his wife in
1920 for Paris, where he lived until his death in 1941.
 Wassily Kandinsky
(1866-1944)
• Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is
credited with painting some of the first purely abstract artworks.
• He was born and lived in Russia for most of his young life. Inspired
by an exhibit of paintings by Monet, he gave up his previous career
of economics to enroll in the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and,
soon after, helped to establish the Museum of the Culture of
Painting.
• He left for Germany in 1920 to escape Soviet society but was forced
to leave when Nazis closed the school where he was teaching in
1933. He would then move to France with his wife, where he
painted some of his most well-known works, and lived there until
his death in 1944.
Viktor Shklovsky (1893-1984)
• An exile of Petrograd (the former name for St.
Petersburg), Shklovsky found an alive and publishing
Russian Literacy community in Berlin, Germany. Here, he
lacked German language skills and minimal interest in
the contemporary German culture, yet still made his
mark on Russian literature.
• Despite great adversity: the civil war, blockade, fuel
shortages, and famine that was prevalent in Petrograd
before his exile, Shklovsky wrote, read, said, and printed
more in the 1920s than any other decade.
• Shklovsky found an innovative solution to the problem
of creating a modern literary identity that was either
slaved by the Russian tradition nor excessively
influenced by personalities from abroad. His choice of
material was to translate the classics of World Literature.
• In his novels, Shklovsky found a way to resurrect classics
and world literature and create canons according to
literary form, rather than the nationality, chronology or
identity of their authors.
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