Imagining the Unimaginable: World War, Modern Art, and the Politics of Public Culture in Russia, 1914-1917

1. The Wars against Tradition: The Culture of the Art Profession in Russia, 1863-1914

1. The Wars against Tradition The Culture of the Art Profession in Russia, 1863–1914 In the years before World War I, prominent members of Russia’s artistic avant-gardedeclaredwaronthecountry’sphilistineVictoriancultureand stuffy art world. “We alone are the face of our Time,” proclaimed the notorious iconoclast David Burliuk in the 1912 manifesto A Slap in the Face of Public Taste, which contained a provocative challenge to the cultural achievements and institutions of Russian civilization: “The past is too tight. The Academy and Pushkin are less intelligible than hieroglyphics. Throw Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc., etc. overboard from the Ship of Modernity.”1 Burliuk and the young poets and painters who were his allies took their assault on conventional values into the physical space of the public sphere when they walked the streets with painted faces, attached spoons to their clothing, and gave scandalous speeches, lectures, and stage performances. Their art was the visual component of this attempttounderminetheauthoritativeinstitutions ,publicstandards,and mainstream art culture of late Imperial Russia. “Modern art,” asserted Olga Rozanova in 1913, “has upturned completely the conception of Art that existed hitherto.”2 Viktor Shklovskii, the noted Soviet literary critic, later remembered that the avant-garde was prepared for a radical change inRussianlife:“Itwasagenerationthatwouldseewarandrevolution.For Russia, it was a generation that would see the end of the old world. And they had already rejected it.”3 Theavant-garde’spublicdisparagementofeducatedRussia’sgreaticons evokedshock,outrage,andridiculeincontemporarynewspapers,butpublic attacks against aesthetic rivals had been a part of professional art life formorethanahalfcentury.HistoriansofImperialRussia,intheirquest tounderstandtherevolution,haveoftenemphasizedthedivisionswithin Russian society, the reliance of professionals on the state, and the weakness of the country’s educated and middle classes.4 But the history of the art world shows that professionalization could also involve an increase in institutional cohesion, material resources, and self-mobilization as civil society grew and became more pluralistic in the late nineteenth and earlytwentiethcenturies.InthisenvironmentartistsinRussiaidentified themselves as professionals and strove to shape a public space that was friendly to their ideas and their interests. Divergence, diversity, and con- flict increased as contradictory philosophies of art, competitive professional goals, and distinct art audiences and buying publics emerged. In responsetothesechallenges,paintersorganizedthemselvesintogroups, defined themselves aggressively against professional rivals, and became preoccupiedwithproblemsofindividual,aesthetic,andnationalidentity. ThepublicactionofartistsinlateImperialRussiawasthusdispersed,unfocused , and often mobilized against other artists even as a common set of values, institutions, and public behaviors suffused their occupational space and stabilized artistic life. The Evolution of the Russian Art World, 1863–1914 ThespectacularvitalityandcreativityoflateImperialRussiainliterature, music, theater, and the visual arts was linked to the rapid changes in the economy and society that engulfed the country after the Great Reforms in the 1860s. In the early nineteenth century, Russia’s official sphere— thatis,itsautocraticgovernment,powerfularistocraticfamilies,andhigh state functionaries—played a major role in the mobilization of the country ’s material and cultural resources. The political, economic, and social 14 | The Wars against Tradition changesthataccompaniedtheGreatReformsatmidcenturyprovidedfor an expanded public based on greater educational, economic, and social opportunities.Inthisatmospheretheintelligentsiacultivatedatradition of hostility toward the autocratic state, a valorization of certain political andphilosophicalideas,andamoralconcernforthebroadmassesofRussian people. This intelligentsia culture, in turn, faced cultural challenges as an industrial takeoff fueled high economic growth, cities swelled, and thepublicdiversifiedaroundtheturnofthetwentiethcentury.After1905 a new Parliament (Duma) gained limited budgetary power, greater press freedoms permitted wider public discussion and a measure of political criticism, and public education expanded. An extensive commercial culturebasedonmass -circulationdailynewspapersandillustratedweeklies, cheapbooksandotherpopularpublications,andcinemaandpopulartheater smudged traditional social categories, cultural forms, and personal identities.5 By 1914 this new commercial culture intermingled with the cultureoftheintelligentsiaandthesmallerofficialsphereinsideabroad, pluralistic public space.6 After1860theartworldalsoexperiencedtremendousphysicalgrowth. Atmidcenturyitwasdominatedbyasingleinstitution,theImperialAcademy of Arts, an organization administered by the Ministry of the Court in St. Petersburg. At one time the Academy was an important vehicle for theEuropeanizationofthecountry,andunderitstutelageImperialRussia developedanartculturerootedinlate-eighteenth-andearly-nineteenthcenturyneoclassicism .OutsidetheAcademyformalartinstitutionswere limited in the mid-nineteenth century: there were few art journals (none longlived),ahandfulofartgroups(aroundtenuntilthelate1880s),atiny art market, and two centers for art (Petersburg and Moscow) (see graph1 intheappendix).Inthe1870sand1880s,however,new collectors, including Pavel M. Tretiakov, the Moscow businessman whose personal collectioneventuallybecametheTretiakovGallery ,startedtopatronizeartists whofocusedonRussianthemes,andtheartworldbegantoexpand.New The Culture of the Art Profession | 15 consumers entered the market, new groups and publications appeared, and new styles arrived from abroad as Imperial Russia became more integrated into international cultural life. Around the turn of the century wealthyfamiliessuchastheRiabushinskiis,Shchukins,andMorozovscollected modern Russian and international art, prestigious museums like theHermitage,theRussianMuseum,andtheTretiakovGalleryexpanded theircollections,andartgroups,exhibitions,andmuseumsspreadtoprovincialcities .Thenumberofartgroupsreflectedthecountry’sincreasing publicspace,doublingtoaroundfortygroupsbetween1890and1900and doublingagaintoovereightygroupsby1910(seegraph1intheappendix); after 1905 the tempo of group formation was faster in the provinces than in Moscow...