{"title":"A Personal History of the Civil War in Alexander Valevsky’s Drawings","authors":"E. Alekseev","doi":"10.15826/qr.2023.1.777","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The analysis of graphic works by the amateur artist A. N. Valevsky (1896–1938) from the collection of the Ulyanovsk Regional Art Museum makes it possible to get a subjective view of the events of the Civil War in Russia. An officer of Kolchak’s army and later a commander of the Red Army, in his drawings, Valevsky recorded not only the everyday realities of the era but also his own experiences and feelings. The famous Soviet painters of the 1920s‑1930s (M. B. Grekov, A. A. Deineka, K. S. Petrov-Vodkin, B. V. Johanson, etc.) avoided any personal interpretation of the events and independent assessments of the revolutionary cataclysms in their epic paintings dedicated to the Civil War. Such a thing is rare in the works of White émigré artists. On the other hand, amateur artists, for whom the documentation of events happening around and internal experiences was a vital need, more often allowed themselves to interpret the history of the “Russian troubles”. Valevsky created his drawings between 1921 and 1925, after the artist’s return to peaceful life and, thus, they can be perceived as memories of what he had experienced. The manner of his graphic works is diverse; they combine grotesque techniques with an attempt to capture reality, and tragic episodes go hand in hand with romantic and comical. In many compositions, the author includes examples of urban and military folklore, lines from poems, romances, and ditties popular among ordinary people. This technique gives the plots both the “spirit of the times” and metaphoricism important for a work of art – the meaningfulness of images. According to the article, the examination of the material also gives a feeling of the autobiographical nature of the entire graphic cycle.","PeriodicalId":43664,"journal":{"name":"Quaestio Rossica","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Quaestio Rossica","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.15826/qr.2023.1.777","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The analysis of graphic works by the amateur artist A. N. Valevsky (1896–1938) from the collection of the Ulyanovsk Regional Art Museum makes it possible to get a subjective view of the events of the Civil War in Russia. An officer of Kolchak’s army and later a commander of the Red Army, in his drawings, Valevsky recorded not only the everyday realities of the era but also his own experiences and feelings. The famous Soviet painters of the 1920s‑1930s (M. B. Grekov, A. A. Deineka, K. S. Petrov-Vodkin, B. V. Johanson, etc.) avoided any personal interpretation of the events and independent assessments of the revolutionary cataclysms in their epic paintings dedicated to the Civil War. Such a thing is rare in the works of White émigré artists. On the other hand, amateur artists, for whom the documentation of events happening around and internal experiences was a vital need, more often allowed themselves to interpret the history of the “Russian troubles”. Valevsky created his drawings between 1921 and 1925, after the artist’s return to peaceful life and, thus, they can be perceived as memories of what he had experienced. The manner of his graphic works is diverse; they combine grotesque techniques with an attempt to capture reality, and tragic episodes go hand in hand with romantic and comical. In many compositions, the author includes examples of urban and military folklore, lines from poems, romances, and ditties popular among ordinary people. This technique gives the plots both the “spirit of the times” and metaphoricism important for a work of art – the meaningfulness of images. According to the article, the examination of the material also gives a feeling of the autobiographical nature of the entire graphic cycle.
期刊介绍:
Quaestio Rossica is a peer-reviewed academic journal focusing on the study of Russia’s history, philology, and culture. The Journal aims to introduce new research approaches in the sphere of the Humanities and previously unknown sources, actualising traditional methods and creating new research concepts in the sphere of Russian studies. Except for academic articles, the Journal publishes reviews, historical surveys, discussions, and accounts of the past of the Humanities as a field.