Paul Cezanne in Russia: The Critical Response

The selection of critical texts, excerpted and translated below, illustrates the reception and assessment of Cezanne in Russia, especially during the 1910s–1930s. References are made both to the responses of radical artists and to the more rigorous ideological attitudes towards Cezanne and French modernism in general during the time of Socialist Realism. The selection also encompasses post-Soviet accounts tinged with structuralism and Post-Modernism, culminating in Elena Murina’s highly influential analyses and appreciations.