Династия Васнецовых: малые детали большого наследия

In this paper, a brief overview of the archival materials concerning the Society of the Science and Art Museum (1907–1914), Society of the Library of Eustachy and Emily Wróblewski (1912–1922), Society of Eustachy and Emily Wróblewski Science Fund (1922–1939) and Society of Wróblewski Library Friends (1936–1939) is presented. These materials are kept in the Wróblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. The first one of the mentioned above societies gathered a valuable collection of rare printed matter and archival documents (the remaining part is kept now in the Wróblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Science); the other three societies have taken part in founding the library and in the proliferation of its funds.After an overview of archival sources, a conclusion is made that the archival material concerning various societies that acted in Vilnius in the first half of the 20th century are of the same character. The majority of them are statutes of the societies, lists of members, the minutes of meetings, activities and financial reports, cash books, statements of inspections and various official papers. These documents enable to restore in essence the circumstances of founding these societies and the main features of their activities. Very valuable is the material in the Manuscript section concerning famous personalities of these societies: Lucjan Uziębło, member of the Vilnius Society of Science and Art Museum, and Tadeusz Wróblewski, the founder of Eustachy and Emily Wróblewski Library. The material comprises their personal documents, scientific certificates, letters, notes, manuscripts, death certificates, obituaries. All this archival material is important not only for the history knowledge of the mentioned societies; it is significant also for the knowledge of the cultural and scientific life in Vilnius of the first half of the 20th century; therefore, it is necessary to preserve it as an important documentary heritage.

The article is devoted to the attribution of the painting “The Holy Family” from the collection of the Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts. When the work was submitted for study, it was dated 1620–1630 and was attributed to Sigismondo Coccapani. The study suggested that the painting was created by Alessandro Rosi, a Florentine artist of the second half of the 17th century, and helped to clarify the chronological framework of the painting’s creation and the iconographic type of the composition corresponding to the image of "Madonna della pappa". Based on foreign research and archival materials, a stylistic correspondence between the painting from the collection of the Yekaterinburg Museum of Fine Arts and the works of Alessandro Rosi was established, and several pictorial analogues were discovered. The results of technical and technological research made it possible to expand information about the work and the features of its creation. The materials and technical methods used in the painting are consistent with the time of Alessandro Rosi's activity and are characteristic of the Italian school of the second half of the 17th century.

The article comprises a contribution to the knowledge of Vladimir Tkalčić’s museological work during his directorship at the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb (1933–1952). Tkalčić’s role in the creation and presentation of the Museum’s “comprehensive” collection of carpets and kilims is determined in the context of museological practices and research in the field of carpet-making at the time. Based on the analysis of the number and type of carpets and kilims acquired during his term, and an examination of the Museum’s archival material, primary and secondary documentation, it is possible to gain an insight into the history of the collection and Vladimir Tkalčić’s collecting and exhibiting policies.

The article is devoted to the Irkutsk artist Natalya Sysoeva, chairman of the Irkutsk branch of the Union of Artists of Russia, director of the Irkutsk Regional Art Museum, painter, author of still-lives and landscapes. In addition, Natalya Sysoeva was engaged in teaching activities both in art educational institutions of Irkutsk and at PJE University, Republic of Korea. Thanks to her energy, organizational skills, several large international projects have been carried out with universities and art schools in Russia, Korea, China, Mongolia. Under her curatorship, more than two dozen albums, catalogues dedicated to the work of Irkutsk artists and the collection of the Irkutsk Art Museum have been published. Статья посвящена творческой деятельности иркутского художника Натальи Сергеевны Сысоевой, председателя Иркутского регионального отделения ВТОО «Союз художников России», директора Иркутского областного художественного музея им. В.П. Сукачёва, живописца. Помимо этого, Н.С. Сысоева много лет преподавала как в художественных учебных заведениях Иркутска, так и в университете Pai Chai, Республика Корея. Благодаря ее энергии, организаторским способностям осуществлено несколько больших международных проектов с университетами и художественными училищами России, Кореи, Китая, Монголии. Под ее кураторством издано более двух десятков альбомов, каталогов, посвященных творчеству иркутских художников и коллекции Иркутского художественного музея.

The relevance of the article. After 2014, several Ukrainian art and activist initiatives emerged that engaged critically with Soviet architectural, artistic, and ideological heritage. In response to the adoption of decommunization laws, which threatened the very existence of the Ukrainian Soviet legacy, activists founded in 2015 the self-organized initiative DE NE DE. One of the initiative’s key research methods involved artistic interventions into museum exhibitions created during the Soviet era, inviting contemporary artists to reinterpret and challenge the established narratives That same year, Lada Nakonechna and Kateryna Badianova founded the experimental educational and cultural organization MethodFund. One of its central focuses was the studying of socialist realism in its multiple dimensions. Over several years, MethodFund has collaborated with the Khmelnytskyi Regional Art Museum and, since 2017, with the National Art Museum of Ukraine. Their work aimed, on the one hand, to examine how museum collections and archives describe, interpret, and display socialist realism as an aesthetic and cultural phenomenon of the Soviet era and, on the other hand, to explore the social and cultural roles of the museum in contemporary society. The methodology. We applied the third strategy of the American researcher James Elkins — replacing the modernist interest in a work’s visual qualities with the study of institutional contexts, market forces, and economic frameworks (Elkins, 2021, p. 127). The analysis of socio-economic contexts turns the researcher’s attention from modernist criteria of value and quality to rethink the aesthetic properties of works of art as products of economic contexts. The economic context of the existence of Soviet art is an economy devoid of private property. The results. The article examines how position papers (such as newspaper articles or speeches that condemned formalism and promoted socialist realism as the only legitimate artistic method) contributed to shaping discussions on socialist realism through their reprints and translations into Ukrainian (Haievskyi, 1936). The scientific novelty. The article highlights the theoretical contradictions and complexities surrounding socialist realism, emphasizing its connection to both the economic (Chukhrov) and philosophical (Lifshits, Lukács) contexts during the transition from capitalism to socialism. The practical significance. Ukrainian Soviet art preserved in museums suffers from a lack of research and public display. At the same time, monumental art located in public spaces is especially vulnerable to destruction due to war, urban development, and other external factors. The growing number of public events, initiatives, and newly published books and articles dedicated to socialist realism reflects an effort to preserve the endangered national artistic heritage of the 20th century. Conclusions. This text examines the variability and instability of the concept and methodology of socialist realism, as reflected in the texts of 1936. The definition of the socialist realist method shifts from a truthful reflection of reality to the reproduction of its dissimilarity, which ultimately becomes the core of the method itself.

He was born to privilege and sought the world of art. She lived at the center of that world—a working artist encouraged by the famous artists in her extended family. Together, Duncan Phillips and Marjorie Acker Phillips founded The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., the first museum of modern art in America. It opened in the grand Phillips family home in 1921, eight years before New York City’s Museum of Modern Art and only a few weeks after they wed. Duncan took the lead in developing the collection and showcasing it. Marjorie kept space and time to paint. Duncan considered Marjorie a partner in the museum even though she was not directly involved in all purchasing and presentation decisions. To him, her influence was omnipresent. Although Duncan’s writings on artists and art history were widely published, he chose not to provide much instruction for visitors to the museum. Instead, he combined signature methods of displaying art which live on at The Phillips Collection. Phillips had viewers in mind when he hung American art with European art—or art of the past with modern art, and he frequently rearranged works to stimulate fresh encounters. With unfettered access to archival material, author Pamela Carter-Birken argues that The Phillips Collection’s relevancy comes from Duncan Phillips’s commitment to providing optimal conditions for personal exploration of art. In-depth collecting of certain artists was one of Phillips’s methods of encouraging independent thinking in viewers. Paintings by Pierre Bonnard, Arthur Dove, Georgia O’Keeffe, John Marin, Jacob Lawrence, and Mark Rothko provide testament to the power of America’s first museum of modern art.

In October 1941, the State Defense Committee (GKO) of the USSR decided to form labor columns in the Central Asian Military District. In subsequent years, the need to expand the military industry and the increase in the number of defense enterprises led to the large-scale recruitment of civilians for construction and production work. Beginning in February 1942, the unemployed urban population was called up for labor service, and from the second half of 1942, all able-bodied individuals, including those with Group III disabilities, were subject to mobilization. Despite the expansion of production due to the evacuation of more than 150 factories and plants to the Uzbek SSR, where a severe labor shortage was also felt, 155,000 labor army soldiers were sent from the republic to other regions of the USSR. This article provides information on the collaboration between the archives of Uzbekistan and Russia in popularizing historical documents about the valor of the fighters in the labor armies. On May 14, 2025, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Victory Day, the Glory Museum (Shon-sharaf) of the Victory Park Memorial Complex opened a joint archival exhibition on the theme "The Feat of the Labor Army Fighters from Uzbekistan During World War II." The primary goal of exhibiting archival sources was to introduce the general public to little-known documentary and visual materials related to the activities of the labor army soldiers. The presentation of new sources allowed the exhibition's curators to showcase not only their selfless labor but also illuminate the daily lives of Uzbeks during the war. The banner exhibition featured over 150 electronic copies of documents. The documentary basis for the joint exhibition was comprised of archival materials from the Perm State Archive of Social and Political History (PermGASPI), the National Archives of Uzbekistan (NAUz), the National Archives of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Documentation of Uzbekistan (NASTMDUz), as well as documents held in the collections of the Berezniki History and Art Museum and the National Archives of Film, Photo, and Sound Documents of Uzbekistan (NAKFFDUz). Following the exhibition, an action plan was signed to continue cooperation between the archives of Uzbekistan and Russia through the preparation and publication of a joint thematic collection of archival documents in 2026. Undoubtedly, such archival work will serve to popularize archival collections not only among researchers but also users. The scientific and practical significance of the exhibition lies in its aim to perpetuate the memory of those who sacrificed their lives to fight and made a worthy contribution to the victory over fascism.

Reviewed by: Цензура в БССР: послевоенные годы, 1944–1956 гг by Л. Смиловицкий Arūnas Streikus (bio) Л. Смиловицкий. Цензура в БССР: послевоенные годы, 1944–1956 гг. Иерусалим, 2015. 360 c. ISBN: 978-965-92411-0-1. Soviet censorship is a wellestablished topic in Soviet studies. Its evolution and performance at different stages has received extensive treatment in several works based on rich archival material.1 Much less is known about the regional variations and specificities of the censorship apparatus. The few available articles on the topic discuss Soviet political control over the public sphere in Latvia and Estonia.2 This is why the book under review is a welcome contribution to the field that sheds new light on the functioning of the Soviet censorship under the particular circumstances of post–World War II Belarus. The book consists of seven chapters. Starting with a detailed description of the organization of censorship in the Belarus SSR (chapter 1), it goes on to examine the staff of the local Glavlit (the central censorship office) in chapter 2. Chapter 3 explores a special category of “state [End Page 488] and military secrets” as a pretext for censorship intervention in the most mundane spheres of life (including agriculture and health care) and the manipulation of public opinion and information. The system of comprehensive censorship of publishing is discussed in chapter 4, and the equally tight control over reading (including libraries and secondhand bookstores) in chapter 5. Of special concern in Belarus was the muting of all Jewish themes in the press and the restriction of access to foreign publications. More than one-third of the book is occupied by chapter 6, which is dedicated to censorship over different forms of cultural production: literature, theater, visual arts, galleries, and so on. The last chapter of the monograph (chapter 7) covers the transitional period after Stalin’s death. Changes in censorship were profound in Belarus, although ambivalent: some topics and books were released from the sway of censors, others remain under their control. New categories of banned information appeared – for example, everything that concerned Stalin’s fallen henchman, Lavrentiy Beria. The author does not confine his account to the history of various forms of state control and manipulation of information, but extends it to reconstruct a broader historical and social context of the epoch. In the book, the historical realities of postwar Belarus are juxtaposed to distorted images disseminated by the official propaganda of the time. The ensuing contrast highlights the importance of the ever-expanding catalog of information forbidden for public access that was listed by Glavlit censors in a register nicknamed “Talmud.” Most references to the actual state of affairs had to be kept secret in order to sustain a surrogate image of reality. Language was part of the censorship process, purged of meanings and words that threatened to compromise the normative discourse of reality. Smilovitskii’s discussion of postwar “Newspeak” resonates with the existing body of research that treats censorship as an instrument establishing and guarding the Soviet discursive order.3 It is all the more disappointing therefore to see that only two pages of the book are devoted to this important topic. The study is based on a rich assortment of primary sources from various archives in Belarus and the Russian Federation. The core is constituted by various documents of the Glavlitbel (the General Directorate for the Protection of Military and State Secrets in the Press of the [End Page 489] BSSR): its annual reports, notes on special topics, and correspondence with the Party and state authorities. They are complemented by a broad range of documents produced by other institutions of political control, including different departments of the Central Committee of the Belarus Communist Party and the Belarus branch of the political police (various predecessors of the KGB). There are also materials of local creative unions, arts museums, the state publishing house, and other organizations that had to comply with censorship in their everyday activities. Documents from Russian archives reveal policy considerations and the guidelines for their implementation by the central Soviet authorities. Unfortunately, the author misses the opportunity to use this diversity of sources to study center−periphery relationships in the process of implementing censorship by clarifying the mechanism of decision making and identifying the priorities of different...

Censorship became increasingly acute in South Africa during the 1960s. Influenced by Dutch Reformed Church leaders, the apartheid government sought to proscribe artistic works that expressed opposition to the politics and ideologies of the time. This article explores the Aidron Duckworth case of 1971 as part of an anti-censorship campaign organised by the Pasquino Society. Duckworth exhibited at the Durban Art Gallery in 1971, at which point eight paintings were banned by the Publications Control Board and deemed “undesirable” because of their “sexually suggestive” nature. In response, to appeal the board's decision, a fund to cover the artist's legal costs was established. Engaging with the Publications Control Board's reasoning, I consider how the government was in fact controlling the board and enforcing a specific kind of moral ideology that served the ends of those in power. Relying on archival materials, the law, and censorship literature on music, publications, film productions, and popular magazine circulations during apartheid in South Africa, my research addresses the literature gap regarding censorship of visual arts. I reflect on controversies surrounding the suppression of Duckworth's works and conclude by explaining why Duckworth's work was an obvious target for censorship.

As exhibitions of visual culture gain importance in the programs of art museums, so does the need for display of original archival material. Consisting most often of preparatory material for works such as films, books, or theater plays, this material was never intended for display and is usually not considered finished work in its own right. However, as often the only original handmade material by the author or artist, archival material of this nature holds tremendous potential. Whether handwritten notes by film director Lars von Trier or the millions of preparatory artworks in the archives of the Disney Animation Research Library, this material represents a crucial entry point to the understanding of 20th-century art and visual culture. It also represents substantial financial value as a commodity, since it may be toured globally in exhibitions. In this chapter, I will touch upon the unique qualities, limitations, and the common business model related to original archival material as source material for exhibitions. My experience is based on my curatorial work as a museum director at the Kunstmuseum Brandts from 2013 to 2019 and currently as director of the Artcenter Spritten in Northern Denmark (due to open in Spring 2024). With a closer look on two key exhibitions, namely the Disney – Art of storytelling (2016) and Lars von Trier – The good with the evil (2017) together with notes on the overall curatorial strategy at the Kunstmuseum Brandts and the Artcenter Spritten respectively, I will highlight how the use of original archival material presented a number of interesting possibilities and an advantageous business opportunity for its lenders.

The study deals with an aspect not considered until now in relation to the Waldes Museum of Buttons and Fasteners, existing in Prague-Vršovice between 1916 and 1945, founded at the initiative of Prague industrialist, collector, and patron of the arts Jindřich Waldes. Alongside Waldes, the other key figure was art historian, conservationist and museum curator Jan Ješek Hofman, whose work between 1916 and 1919 in many ways achieved the plan to build a collection and research institution. What was behind this outwardly-representative, functioning private institution and how did the relationship between Waldes, an enthusiastic and affluent private collector, and Hofman, the expert tasked with putting his ideas in place at a professional level, actually evolve? The study aims to present an interpretation of the relationship by analysing preserved archival materials and period publications. It also represents the Waldes Museum as a remarkable museum experiment.

The paper analyzes images of the Orthodox sculpture and icon paintings from the collections of Perm State Art Gallery, Tobolsk Historical and Architectural Museum-Sanctuaries, Irkutsk Regional Art Museum. Among the objects analyzed, the authors' attention was drawn to images of the Ural-Siberian origin of the XVII-XIX centuries with a pronounced anthropological appearance of the Finno-Ugric (mainly Komi-Permyak and Ob-Ugric) and the Tatar populations; as comparison the paper describes the Byzantine icons of an earlier origin with the anthropological appearance of other peoples. The “ethnic” approach to images was practiced in the history of the church with a missionary purpose to create an image of Orthodoxy that would be closer to the local environment, including the existing beliefs. The authors noted that the anthropological appearance on the icons is often accompanied by the colors of those religions to which the flock subjected to missionary belonged: green – in the case of Islam, orange – in the practice of Buddhism, etc. The paper notes that this approach was used by the Orthodox Church in different historical periods, but it appeared first in Byzantium and was transferred to the iconography of the Urals and Siberia. This emphasizes the continuity of the Orthodox culture, its religious canons and the principles of images preserved in different political conditions. At that time it was the source of anthropological appearance and the religion of peoples who fell into the missionary activity of the Christian Church.

Цель настоящей статьи – выявление сущности субъектности регионального художественного музея через рассмотрение его как универсального культурного феномена, проявляющего универсальные общеродовые признаки в различных социокультурных условиях. Исследование выполнено на материалах российских и зарубежных исследований в сфере культурологии, истории и социологии. Автором применены деятельностный, структурно-функциональный и семиотический подходы. Выявлены элементы, составляющие субъектность регионального художественного музея: музейные коллекции, штат сотрудников, совокупность посетителей, уникальность музея, его участие в культурной политике, реконструкция программирующих свойств культуры на глобальном, национальном и региональном уровнях коммуникативного взаимодействия. Изучение обозначенной темы позволяет сделать вывод о том, что сущность субъектности регионального художественного музея состоит в осуществлении социальных инвестиций в доступной только ему форме усиления ценности сохраняемого им культурного наследия региона. The aim of the study is to identify the essence of the subjectivity of the regional art museum by considering it as a universal cultural phenomenon that manifests universal common generic characters in various sociocultural conditions. The study is based on materials from Russian and foreign studies in the field of cultural studies, history, and sociology. The methodological basis was the activity, structural-functional, and semiotic approaches. The author explores the ultimate state of the museum in the system of cultural life, indicating that in any social conditions its essence consists not only in the preservation of collections, but also in their actualization through educational and sociocultural activities. The totalityof museum visitors is interpreted as one of the components of its subjectivity, along with collections and staff. The number of visitors depends on the uniqueness of the museum, which is also an integral part of subjectivity. It is determined that the activities of the museum cannot be fully tied to the goals and objectives of cultural policy, since museum collections potentially have a comprehensive value. Participation in cultural policy therefore acts only as an element constituting the subjectivity of the museum. The author indicates that an important task of the work of the regional art museum is to popularize the culture of the region at the national and global levels, realizing which, such a museum becomes the subject of world culture. It is emphasized that the museum provides a communicative connection between generations, while acting as a subject organizing its own metacommunicative space. In this space, cultural meanings are reconstructed and the dialectical tension of communication is allowed. It has been established that the museum realizes the resource potential of its collections through value differentiation of the results of artistic creation and art, as well as by placing cultural heritage in relevant aspects of social discourse. The author concludes that the essence of the subjectivity of the regional art museum consists in making social investments in the form (accessible exclusively to this institution) of strengthening the value of the cultural heritage of the region that it preserves. Regional and national cultural policies normatively and strategically regulate the sociocultural activities of the regional art museum, but do not limit its subjectivity in social communication and activities. At the same time, the subjectivity of the museum largely determines its image and social success.

The article provides an overview on the history of the Kola Arctic region and the Arctic artistic exploration based on the “Straight to the North” temporary exhibition in Murmansk Regional Art Museum, 2019. Pieces of icon painting, decorative and applied arts, books, household items, painting and graphic arts and collection of the Kola Peninsula minerals were exhibited there. Some art works are described in details: paintings of Russian artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and Soviet artists, including painters from Murmansk and members of “The Arctic” creative team in 1978–1985. The authors analysed, how social and economic development of the Kola Arctic region influenced new art styles and directions: from plein air painting under the Extreme North conditions to industrial landscapes and creation of an art community. The authors dedicate the article to the memory of Honored Artist of the Russian Federation, the leader of “The Arctic” creative team Arvi Ivanovich Huttunen (31.08.1922–27.08.2020).

Статья посвящена одному из самых замечательных произведений советской эпохи – картине выдающегося советского художника Аркадия Александровича Пластова «Ужин трактористов» (1951 года), которая с 1952 года хранится в Иркутском областном художественном музее имени В.П. Сукачева. Судьба этой картины складывалась драматично. В сталинское время она была подвергнута критике как не соответствующая идейным канонам социалистического реализма и, отвергнутая столичными музеями, оказалась в собрании Иркутского областного художественного музея. Ее триумф пришелся на времена хрущевской «оттепели», когда картина прославилась не только на выставках в нашей стране, но и далеко за рубежом. Возросшая оценка живописного полотна стала причиной претензий на него со стороны Третьяковской галереи. Сотрудникам сибирского музея удалось вернуть картину в свою коллекцию. А для Государственной Третьяковской галереи А.А. Пластов в 1961 г. создал ее повторение. На основе документов автор статьи опровергает возникшие в искусствоведческой литературе неточности в толковании судьбы этой картины. The article is about one of the most remarkable works of the Soviet epoch – the painting “Dinner of Tractorists” (1951) by the outstanding Soviet artist Arkady Plastov. This painting is kept in the Sukachev Irkutsk Regional Art Museum. The fate of this picture was dramatic. In Stalin's time, it was criticized as not corresponding to the ideological canons of socialist realism and, rejected by the capital's museums, ended up in the collection of the Irkutsk Regional Art Museum. The triumph for the painting came in the mid-1950s – 1960s, when it became famous not only at Russian exhibitions, but also far abroad. The increased appreciation of the painting became the reason for pretension on it from the Tretyakov Gallery. The staff of the Irkutsk museum managed to return the painting to its collection. And Arkady Plastov created the replay for the State Tretyakov Gallery in 1961. Based on the documents, the author of the article refutes the inaccuracies in the interpretation of the fate of this picture that arose in the literature of art history.