The self-taught artist Konstantin Tretyakov, who lived in the south of the Arkhangelsk region, where the Ustya merges with the Vaga, painted many paintings about the events of the civil war, although that war only touched the edge of two large villages where Tretyakov spent his whole life - Blagoveshchensk and Voskresensk.
The full names of the villages are Blagoveshchenskoye and Voskresenskoye, but local residents abbreviate these names.

Blagoveshchensk stands on the high bank of the Ustya, and Voskresensk is a few kilometers from it, between the Ustya and the Vaga.
Here, in Blagoveshchensk, at the end of July 1918, a detachment of Maxim Rakitin left Shenkursk.
In July 1918, Shenkursk was in the hands of the peasants for several days, who did not want to be mobilized into the Red Army at the height of the summer suffering, and who did not want to fight with anyone. Gradually, the peasants dispersed to their villages, and Rakitin, having learned that a detachment of Red Army soldiers was approaching the city, went up the Vaga.
But the Soviet government did not last long in Shenkursk either.
On August 12, having learned that steamships with allies and White Guards were moving along the Vaga, employees of the executive committee of the district council, the military registration and enlistment office and the Red Army boarded the Shenkursk steamer and set off up the Vaga towards Velsk.
The Rakitintsy remained in Blagoveshchensk, although the peasants, who did not want to be between a rock and a hard place, tried to get rid of them, or at least take their weapons from them. The detachment did not give up their weapons, but they did not go towards Velsk either.
A few days later, the Soviet authorities in Velsk managed to form a detachment of 135 people, who, having crossed the Vaga, began to prepare an attack on Blagoveshchensk.

The attack on Blagoveshchensk began at dawn. The Red Army soldiers advanced from the direction of Voskresensk and reached the last row of huts that stood on the banks of the Ustya.
The Rakitins were not going to give up. They had enough weapons, they even had two machine guns. The Arkhangelsk historian E.I. Ovsyankin in the book “The Fiery Boundary” (Arkh., 1997) wrote that there was a steamer with a cannon near the shore, from which shrapnel fire was opened on the advancing, but what kind of steamer was it, where did it come from , I do not know. The Red Army retreated.

sent katias

The large two-story huts that stood with their backs to the mouth are no longer there, they were demolished in the seventies. Now instead of them there are brick boxes of the state farm administration, a canteen, a post office and a store.
A large bright house has been preserved on the left. There is now a village administration.
Until the end of the sixties, there was a large five-window house adjoining the church fence. In the sixties there was a kindergarten, and in August 1918 part of the Rakitins was housed.
A relative told how he heard the story of an old man from the Annunciation, who was in the house just on the morning when the attack began.
- Woke up from gunfire. They are firing all around, and you will not understand who is firing. Shooting right through the windows. I, men, almost crap out of fear ... I didn’t even get dressed. He grabbed his pants, and a rifle, but jumped out the window, into the one that overlooked the river ...

During the battle, one person was killed in a detachment of Red Army soldiers, Pavel Stepanovich Glazachev, born in 1878, a native of the Shenkur district.

This is a photograph of the famous winter fair in Blagoveshchensk. The end of the twenties, i.e. before the start of collectivization, there was nothing left.
A little ahead is a wooden church, behind it is a stone, two-story, with a large bell tower.
When I was little, I once listened to the story of the old people, who in 1918 were 10-12 years old, how they ran to look at the murdered Glazachev. He lay under a large bird cherry tree, which stood ten meters from the wooden church. The old people remembered that he was wearing a leather jacket, and he was lying on his back, arms outstretched.

Here the bird cherry is better visible.
Hiding behind her, Glazachev fired at the windows of a large two-story hut that stood across the road, but the one who was in the hut was more fortunate.

Glazachev was buried in the same place where he died, under a bird cherry tree. Bird cherry did not even live up to the seventies, and the former church still stands. In the thirties, a club and a library were arranged in it.

In the 1950s, a monument was erected on Glazachev's grave. Then the Soviet power collapsed, it was replaced either by capitalism, or it is not clear what, and now no one cares about the monument. The monument is slowly being destroyed, and the poplars are getting old

The plate on the monument "Killed in battles with the interventionists in 1918-1920" surprised me as a child.
Firstly, there were no interventionists in the village, but there were the same Shenkur peasants who simply did not like the new government. Secondly, what does the battles of "1918-1920" have to do with it, if he died in battle in August 1918, and in the battles of 1919-1920. could not participate.

I don't know what the Leo Tolstoy paddle steamer had to do with these events. The artist Tretyakov apparently knew, but I don't know.

The next day, the detachment received an order from Kedrov: "Attack Blagoveshchensk again or set it on fire from all sides." Ovsyankin wrote in his book “The Fiery Boundary” that the next morning the Red Army went on the attack, dragging canisters of kerosene with them. That's what it is, a civil war!
Crossing the Vaga, the Red Army learned that the Rakitins from Blagoveshchensk had gone to Shenkursk.
I think the local peasants persuaded the Rakitins, and they had the decency not to arrange a new fight in the village. And with two machine guns, and if they were correctly placed, it was possible to meet the Red Army soldiers well.

The stone church, or rather what is left of it, still stands in the village. Until the early eighties, there was a department store on the second floor, then a cafe, then the entrance to the second floor was closed.
The rural bakery, which was set up right in the altar, baked bread until the end of the nineties. Then the church was handed over to believers. Those who believe in God do not have money to restore the church, and those who have money do not believe in God or in hell.

"A detachment of fighters before going to Shenkursk".
The painting was painted by Tretyakov in the Shirshinsky Nursing Home in 1979.

"To the battle for the High Mountain."

The villages of Ust-Padenga, Nizhnyaya Gora and Vysokaya Gora, occupied by the Americans and the White Guards, were located on the banks of the Vaga, 25 versts from Shenkursk.
In January 1919, with an attack on these villages, the 6th Army launched the Shenkur operation.
First, the Americans retreated from Nizhnyaya Gora, then they left Ust-Padenga.
On the high bank of the river Ust-Padenga they managed to linger, but then they retreated to Shenkursk.

The bank of Ust-Padenga, where the battery of Canadian artillerymen was stationed, and where the positions of the Americans were, I photographed from the window of the bus last summer.

All the activities of the Soviet government after the revolution in the field of art were aimed at developing the creative activity of Soviet artists. During this period, various forms of propaganda and mass art developed most rapidly; it goes out into the streets and addresses the masses of millions of working people. During the holidays, for the first time, streets and squares began to be decorated with large colorful panels on revolutionary themes, banners, and bright posters.
Agitation trains and steamboats also became an effective means of artistic propaganda. Propaganda literature was transported in them, film shifters, exhibitions were placed, lecturers and speakers traveled.
New tasks also confronted Soviet painting. It was necessary to reflect the greatest changes that have taken place in our country, the grandeur of the revolutionary events and the heroism of their participants, to capture the image of the leader of the revolutionary masses, Lenin.
In 1922, the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AHRR) was created, bringing together leading realist artists. The artists of the AHRR raised the issue of a broad promotion of art.
"Art to the masses" - that was their slogan. During the ten-year period of its existence, the AHRR organized 11 art exhibitions on a wide variety of topics: "Life and Life of Workers", "Lenin's Corner", "Revolution, Life and Labor" and many others.
As can be seen from the titles of these exhibitions, artists were interested in everything: the revolutionary activity of Lenin and the heroic struggle of the Red Army in the Civil War, the new life of Soviet people and the life of the peoples of the Soviet Union.
Young artists went to factories and factories, to Red Army barracks and camps, to villages and remote areas of our homeland. They wanted to feel the pulse of the new life, its mighty tread and scope...
This deep and inextricable connection between the artists of the AHRR and the life of the people aroused a keen interest in their paintings. Very soon, the Association included masters of the older generation, such as N. Kasatkin, A. Moravov, P. Radimov, young artists N. Terpsikhorov, B. Ioganson and many others. With great inspiration and creativity, they set about creating new paintings.
The leading themes in the painting of these years are the themes of the October Revolution and the Civil War. These themes played almost as great a role in the development of Soviet genre painting as in the development of Soviet fiction. Artists of AHRR correctly understood the great educational value of paintings on the themes of the heroic struggle of the Soviet people.
M. Grekov, the greatest Soviet battle painter and chronicler of the Civil War, dedicated his work to the glorification of the heroism and courage of the soldiers of the Red Army. His paintings: “To the detachment to Budyonny”, “Tachanka” and others are bright pages of the glorious history of the Soviet people.

In 1913, Grekov painted pictures on themes from the history of the grenadier, cuirassier and Pavlovsk regiments. Participating in the First World War (as a private), he made many sketches at the front. The Great October Socialist Revolution gave the artist the opportunity to reveal the full power of his talent. Having volunteered for the Red Army, Grekov witnessed the heroic struggle of the workers and peasants against the counter-revolution and, in his vivid sketches and paintings, captured the legendary military campaigns of the famous 1st Cavalry Army. Grekov's paintings captivate with the simplicity and sincerity of the narration, they are distinguished by the accuracy of social characteristics and the deep realism of the image. In Grekov's battle paintings, the pathos of a heroic, just people's war always sounds. Summarizes the material of his direct observations, but remains documented truthful. Grekov saturates his works with a sense of patriotism. His work is an example of Bolshevik ideological art. Deep ideology and high skill determined the wide popularity of his works. Dynamic composition, precise drawing and harmonic tonality of his paintings give them a remarkable completeness and expressiveness. Creativity Grekov marks one of the greatest achievements of the art of socialist realism. Grekov develops the best traditions of the Russian battle genre.

The events of the civil war were reflected in the work of artists M. Avilov, A. Deineka and many others. A prominent figure in the Communist Party wrote:
“At the AHRR exhibition dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the Red Army, tens of thousands of workers and Red Army soldiers were genuinely delighted, reaching the point of enthusiasm at the sight of scenes from the civil war, sometimes rendered with extraordinary realism.”
An outstanding role in the development of Soviet historical-revolutionary painting belongs to the artist I. I. Brodsky, who managed to capture the greatness and grandeur of the historical events of these years. His paintings “Grand Opening of the Second Congress of the Comintern in the Uritsky Palace in Petrograd”, “The Execution of 26 Baku Commissars” and “V. I. Lenin’s Speech at the Putilov Factory” were a significant milestone in the creation of a new Soviet historical picture.

The October Revolution opened in Brodsky masters of large-scale multi-figured canvases. Thinks of the cycle "Revolution in Russia" - so great is the enthusiasm of the artist, who has become an eyewitness to great events. In this cycle, he wanted "to reflect the greatness of our era, calmly and simply, using the language of realistic art, to tell about the great deeds and days of the revolution, about its leaders, heroes and ordinary soldiers." The first picture of this cycle was the huge (150 characters) canvas "The Grand Opening of the Second Congress of the Comintern", the second - "The Execution of 26 Baku Commissars". The artist's arsenal also contains tragic colors, his method is enriched with historicism, artistic imagery - with documentary. In the process of work, Brodsky studies all the necessary historical and iconographic material, eyewitness accounts, travels to the scene. So, while working on the painting "Grand Opening ...", he made hundreds of portrait sketches of leading figures in the international workers' and communist movement. Now these masterful graphic portraits are an invaluable historical and artistic material.

Petrov-Vodkin

Petrov-Vodkin invariably preferred to remain outside the castes, exhorting his relatives not to get involved in politics in which "the devil himself would break his leg." However, he takes the October Revolution of 1917 enthusiastically. He immediately agreed to cooperate with the new government and became a professor at the Higher Art School, he began teaching at the Petrograd Academy of Arts, repeatedly designed theater productions, created many paintings and graphic sheets. The revolution seemed to him a grandiose and terribly interesting thing. The artist sincerely believes that after October "the Russian people, despite all the torments, will arrange a free, honest life. And this life will be open to everyone."

Petrov-Vodkin from the first years of the revolution was an active participant in the artistic life of the Soviet country, since 1924 he was a member of one of the most significant art societies - the Four Arts. He devoted a lot of energy to teaching, developing the theory of painting. He was one of the reorganizers of the system of art education, worked a lot as a graphic artist and theater artist. He became an Honored Artist of the RSFSR, called himself "a sincere fellow traveler of the revolution", but still he was not an artist who would completely suit the Soviet authorities. A symbolist with the Parisian school, an icon painter in the past, who did not hide his interest in the icon and in religious art even in the era of militant materialism, did not fit the format of Soviet saints in any way. And maybe he would have shared the fate of many talented people who rotted in the Gulag.

Repeatedly referring to the theme of the Civil War, Petrov-Vodkin sought to capture the events in their historical significance. In 1934 he created one of his last strong paintings "1919. Anxiety". The artist considered it necessary in his interviews and conversations to explain his plan in detail: the picture shows the apartment of a worker, located in a city threatened by the White Guards. The worker's family is seized with anxiety, and this is not just human anxiety, but class anxiety, calling for struggle. It must be assumed that he did not try in vain with explanations, because without them everything that happened could be interpreted completely differently. At least, the main thing here is not 1919 at all, the main thing is Anxiety, anxiety with a capital letter, which is the main character and the subject of the image. Anxiety for the fatherland, for human destinies, for the future of children in 1934 acquired a different meaning than in 1919. The picture of a St. Petersburg worker being called into the militia in the middle of the night is perceived as a premonition of the Stalinist terror with its nightly arrests. In his later works, Petrov-Vodkin departs from the laconism of his previous paintings. He writes multi-figure compositions, complements the plot with many details. Sometimes this begins to interfere with the perception of the main idea (such is his last painting "Housewarming" on the theme of "densification of the former bourgeoisie", written in 1938).

Kustodiev

Kustodiev was among those realist artists of the older generation who joyfully accepted the revolution. In his work, new themes appear, inspired by the turbulent events of those years. The first work of Kustodiev, dedicated to the revolution, depicts the day of the overthrow of tsarism and is called "February 27, 1917". The events seen by the artist from the window of a room on the Petrograd side retain the brightness and persuasiveness of a direct life impression in the picture. The sonorous winter sun lights up the brick wall of the house with a red color, penetrates clean, fresh air. A dense crowd of people is moving, bristling with the points of guns. They run, waving their arms, raising their hats in the air. Festive excitement is felt in everything: in the rapid movement, in the blue shadows rushing about on the pink snow, in the dense, bright puffs of smoke. Here you can still see the first direct reaction of the artist to the revolutionary events.

Two years later, in 1919-1920, in the film Bolshevik, he tried to summarize his impressions of the revolution. Kustodiev uses a typical method of generalization and allegory. A crowd flows in a thick, viscous stream along the narrow Moscow streets. The sun colors the snow on the roofs, makes the shadows blue and elegant. And above all this, above the crowd and houses, a Bolshevik with a banner in his hands. Sonorous colors, open and sonorous red - everything gives the canvas a major sound.
In 1920-1921, commissioned by the Petrograd Soviet, Kustodiev painted two large colorful canvases dedicated to national celebrations: “A holiday in honor of the Second Congress of the Comintern on Uritsky Square” and “A Night Feast on the Neva”.

AT

Original taken from Tipolog in
Russia: the realities of revolution and civil war
through the eyes of the artist Ivan Vladimirov (part 2)

Russia: the realities of revolution and civil war
through the eyes of the artist Ivan Vladimirov
(part 2)

The battle painter Ivan Alekseevich Vladimirov (1869 - 1947) is known for his cycles of works dedicated to the Russo-Japanese War, the 1905 Revolution and the First World War.
But the most expressive and realistic was the cycle of his documentary sketches of 1917-1920.
In the previous part of this collection, the most famous paintings by Ivan Vladimirov of this period of time were presented. This time it was the turn to put on public display those of them that, for various reasons, were not widely presented to the audience and are largely new to it.

To enlarge any of the images you like, click on it with the mouse.
In the cellars of the Cheka (1919)

Russia: the realities of revolution and civil war through the eyes of the artist Ivan Vladimirov (part 1)

Capture of White Guard spies

Peasant uprising on the estate of Prince Shakhovsky

Execution of peasants by White Cossacks

Capture of Wrangel tanks by the Red Army near Kakhovka

The flight of the bourgeoisie from Novorossiysk in 1920

The Revolution and the Civil War in Russia through the eyes of the artist Ivan Vladimirov (part 1)

Original taken from Tipolog to Russia: the realities of revolution and civil war through the eyes of the artist Ivan Vladimirov (part 1)

Russia: the realities of revolution and civil war through the eyes of the artist Ivan Vladimirov (part 1)

Capture of White Guard spies

Peasant uprising on the estate of Prince Shakhovsky