SOVIET PAINTINGS OF WORLD WAR II
Soviet artists kept themselves busy right from the start of the war:
they drew portraits of the bravest servicemen and did their best with a
view to depict the heaviest fighting on the defense lines and the plight
of civilians. Many events of that war can still be seen the way they saw
them. They would not shy away from the horrible truth of the war action.
But they laid emphasis on the bravery of the Soviets, their patriotism
and their hatred of the enemy. Their paintings made people all the more
confident that Nazi Germany would sooner or later suffer a defeat.
They produced what art critics used to call battle scenes, i.e. highly
patriotic paintings, largely pictures of combat engagements. But the message
of the battle scenes of the World War II years was different from that
of the pre-war paintings. The new generation of painters focused on the
fighter rather than fighting.
Barely had a development taken place, they were ready to depict it,
and what they created may by rights be described as a chronicle of World
War II. Sketches and quickly-made drawings of what they saw at the front
provided material for large-scale paintings.
Even now, fifty years later, the war of 1941-1945 leaves not a single
artist indifferent and many artists still paint scenes of that war. Although
their mentality is different from that of their fathers and grandfathers
and although they have found new ways to depict things, the younger generation
of artists carry on the tradition.
SOVIET PAINTINGS OF WORLD WAR II
"THE PEOPLE HAVE RISEN TO FIGHT THIS HOLY WAR."
An unprecedented number of Nazi German and allied troops broke into
the Soviet Union in the small hours of Sunday, June 22, 1941.
It took poet Vasily Lebedev-Kumach two days, June 22 and June 23, to
write his Holy War poem. The poem made the lyrics of a new song presented,
a mere three days later, to departing troops by the song and dance company
of the Red Army. Artists, as well as the troops, met its call for national
unity, moral integrity and heroism.
An army parade was, in keeping with a tradition, held on Red Square
on November 7, 1941. The parading troops left Moscow for the western front.
K.Yuon, The Red Square parade of November 7, 1941.
Moscow, 1942
|
Hitler attached special importance to the seizure of Moscow. He expected
the seizure of the Soviet capital to signal a surrender of the Soviet Union.
L.Kartashov, Moscow, 1941. 1983
|
G.Nissky, Off to defend Moscow.
Leningradskoye Chaussee, 1942.
|
|
I.Sokolov, Westward bound, from the "Moscow,
1942" series. 1943
|
Thousands of people joined the guerrillas. As many as 41 guerrilla
detachments and 377 subversion teams were active in the environs of Moscow
in 1941. As many as 11 territories and areas - a sizable part of occupied
land - were controlled by the guerrillas in 1942.
V.Chekanyuk, The guerrillas, a detail of the painting.
1975
|
|
V.Gavrilov, For the motherland. 1959
|
Both blue- and white-collar workers were trying to do their best for
the earliest victory. They tried to outdo one another in an effort to help
the Red Army. The productivity of labor at industrial enterprises rose,
from April, 1942, to April, 1944, by 40 percent.
A.Kozlov, Socialist emulation at a defense plant,
1942. 1942.
|
|
AT THE BATTLEFIELD
Soviet painters produced highly emotional and meaningful pictures of
battle scenes. They show a deep understanding of the course of developments,
the mood of fighting men and wartime documents.
P.Krivonogov, The defenders of the Brest Fortress.
1951
|
It took the enemy nearly a month (June 22 to July 20) to seize the
Brest Fortress. The defending troops pinned down no less than an infantry
division supported by tanks, artillery and aviation. Most of them were
killed, but a few men found a way to join the guerrillas, although some,
mostly heavily wounded men, were taken prisoner.
A.Deineka, The defense of Sebastopol. 1942
|
It took the Germans 250 days (November, 1941 to July, 1942) to seize
the Black Sea city of Sebastopol. The troops defending that city thwarted
the enemy plans at the southern stretch of the frontline.
P.Krivonogov, At the Kursk Bend. 1949
|
The Kursk battle began on July 5, 1943, to end on August 23 of the
same year, with Nazi Germany losing as many as 30 divisions and the Soviets
winning the strategic initiative. The Germans took up defensive positions
all along their Soviet frontline.
P.Krivonogov, The Korsun-Shevchenkovskoye Bloodbath.
1945
|
The Korsun-Shevchenkovskaya operation was launched in the winter of
1944. The Soviets destroyed ten German divisions.
PLACES OF WAR ACTION
The wartime routine, the truthful depiction of the developments stunned
those who first saw paintings and drawings of the war years. Art is powerful
inasmuch as it enters life. Blowups of the best wartime paintings were
placed on the thoroughfares of besieged Leningrad. One of them, The Enemy
Has Been Here!, by V.Serov, was mounted near the Kazan cathedral at Leningrad's
Nevsky Avenue.
V.Serov, The enemy has been here! 1942
|
The Nazis broke the world record of war crimes. They razed to the ground
thousands upon thousands of villages and cities. The soldiers and officers
of the German Wermacht were told to kill "any Soviet they would meet,
be it an old man or a woman, a boy or a girl." They would have to
kill everyone, they were told, if they wanted "to stay alive, secure
a good future for their families and have generations to come glorify their
names."
A.Plastov, The Germans are coming. July, 1941.
1941
|
A.Plastov, A Nazi Plane has flown by. 1942
|
S.Gerasimov, The mother of a guerrilla fighter.
1943
|
M.Samsonov, The Little Nurse. 1953
|
T.Gaponenko, The occupants have been driven away,
1943-1946
|
A.Krasnov, For the motherland. 1958
|
|
Ya.Nikolayev, Leningrad.
The winter of 1941-1942.
Lining up for bread, 1942.
|
More than 640,000 people succumbed to famine and frost in the 900 days
and nights of the Nazi blockade (winter of 1941 to spring of 1944.) Thousands
of evacuees died of the aftereffects of the famine.
Kukryniksy, The nazis are leaving Novgorod
|
Soviet troops regained control of the city of Novgorod in Jnauary,
1944. The Nazi occupants had killed 201,000 civilians and prisoners-of-war
in that city, damaged, if not destroyed, all its industrial enterprises
and cultural centers, as well as many monuments of old Russian architecture
and nearly all the houses. When Soviet troops entered Novgorod, they there
were 30 people to be found in that city.
VICTORY
The Act of the unconditional surrender of the German armed forces was
signed in Karlhorst, near Berlin, on May 8, 1945.
The Soviet Union had for a long time been pining up for the victory.
There were new developments, new faces and new moods to paint. The post-war
paintings spelt out a new message: the happiness of being alive and hope
for a happy future.
B.Ioganson, The fireworks of victory.
A sketch. 1945
|
|
P.Krivonogov, The victory. 1948
|
A.Yeryomin, The 9th of May. 1980
|
V.Sidorov, The VE-day. 1945
|
V.Kiselyov, He's come back. 1947
|
A TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF THE FALLEN
The war claimed more than 25 million human lives. It left millions
of widows, orphans and cripples. It left an abyss of misery. Half of those
who marched off to the frontlines never came back. How many talented people
is this country short of, now?!
F.Bogorodsky, Glory to the fallen heroes. 1945
|
P.Semyonov, The father of eight slain soldiers
Nikanor Fyodorovich Sidorov. 1975
|
A.Yakovlev, A tribute to the memory of the fallen
artists.
|
More time will pass by but the generations to come will be sure to
remember the abnegation of the war years. What the Soviet people did in
the war years remains an inexhaustible source of inspiration in the eyes
of artists.
|
Materials used to set up the exhibition: Ye. Zaitsev,
The Art Chronicle Of The Great Patriotic War, Iskusstvo Publishing House,
1986. An Illustrated History Of Moscow, v. 2 Mysl Publishing House. |
Copyright © 2000 The Voice of Russia
|