Imagining Russian: Vladimir Stasov in the Construction of the National Style of the Russian Empire
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15826/qr.2023.4.847Keywords:
Russian Empire, architecture of the 19th century, nationalism, constructing of the nation, Vladimir Stasov, Russian Revival StyleAbstract
This article examines the phenomenon of the “Russian Revival Style” in the architecture of the late Russian Empire, which opens vast opportunities for interpretation. Since the late twentieth century, the most widespread approach to this phenomenon has been a romanticised point of view, where the Russian style is described as a realisation of the people’s objective need for national selfidentification. A significant role in the formation of this perspective was played by the journalism of the post-reform decades of the nineteenth century, by Vladimir Stasov in particular, whose views were regarded as canonical in the Soviet era as those of an expert and interpreter of the Russian artistic process of the 1860s–1880s. The experience of Soviet art studies shows that in case of a biased reading, Stasov’s texts could provide a more radical version of the origin of the Russian Revival Style interpreted as an expression of the sympathies and aspirations of the revolutionary-minded intelligentsia. This study identifies the contradiction between Stasov’s “democratic” rhetoric and the realities of class society. This inner conflict allows Stasov’s judgments to be attributed to the realm of cultural imagination and not to the description of an ongoing process, to the category of presumptions, not statements. Analysing the interpretation of the Russian Revival Style given by Stasov as one of the manifestations of progress, of which he was an unconditional and ardent supporter, the author of the article proposes to consider this phenomenon in the context of the purposeful construction of the imperial nation, carried out by the Russian autocracy throughout the nineteenth century. The title and arguments of his review essay Twenty-Five Years of Russian Art (1883), which summarises the artistic results of the quarter-century reign of Emperor Alexander II (1856–1881), testifies to the quite state-centred character of Stasov’s optics. The practice of the authorities in building a national identity through architecture met the needs of various social groups – from representatives of the aristocracy who sympathised with modernisation to industrialists interested in selling their goods on the foreign market. The opposition-minded intellectual, who clearly understood the socio-political background of the Russian Revival Style, was the last in the line of sympathisers with this enterprise. Sceptical of pre-reform institutions and the slanted tastes of high society, the nobleman Stasov was at the same time not one of the “Carbonari of art” and his apologia of the “Russian” was entirely in line with official imperial nationalism.
References
Atlas normal’nykh chertezhei sooruzheniyam po vedomstvu Ministerstva gosudarstvennykh imushchestv [Atlas of Regular Drawings for Structures under the Department of the Ministry of State Property]. (1842). St Petersburg, Litografiya III Departamenta gosudarstvennykh imushchestv. [19] p., 110 pl.
Azadovskii, M. K. (1958). Istoriya russkoi fol’kloristiki v 2 t. [A History of Russian Folklore Study. 2 Vols.]. Moscow, Uchpedgiz. Vol. 1. 480 p.
Borisova, E. A. (1979). Russkaya arkhitektura vtoroi poloviny XIX veka [Russian Architecture in the Second Half of the 19th Century]. Moscow, Nauka. 318 p.
Entsiklopedicheskii slovar’ Brokgauza i Efrona v 82 t. [Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary. 82 Vols.]. (1901). Moscow, Semenovskaya tipolitografiya (I. A. Efrona). Vol. 62. II, 473–954, II, 2 p.
Fedorov-Davydov, A. A. (1929). Russkoe iskusstvo promyshlennogo kapitalizma [Russian Art during the Industrial Capitalism Era]. Moscow, Gosudarstvennaya akademiya khudozhestvennykh nauk. 246 p.
Gerchuk, Yu. Ya. (1994) Problemy russkoi psevdogotiki XVIII veka [Problems of Russian Pseudo-Gothic of the 18th Century]. In Pospelov, G. G. (Ed.). Russkii klassitsizm vtoroi poloviny XVIII – nachala XIX veka. Moscow, Izobrazitel’noe iskusstvo, pp. 147–156.
Herzen, A. I. (1956). Byloe i dumy [Past and Thoughts]. In Herzen, A. I. Sobranie sochinenii v 30 t. Moscow, Izdatel’stvo Akademii nauk SSSR. Vol. 8. Parts 1–3. 518 p.
Kirichenko, E. I. (1972). Arkhitektor I. Ropet [Architect I. Ropette]. In Arkhitekturnoe nasledstvo. No. 20. Moscow, Stroiizdat, pp. 85–93.
Kirichenko, E. I. (1986). Arkhitekturnye teorii XIX veka v Rossii [19th Century Architectural Theories in Russia]. Moscow, Iskusstvo. 344 p.
Kuznetsov, S. O. (2017). Gvardii park. Istoriko-khudozhestvennoe issledovanie Ekateringofa v Sankt-Peterburge [Guard Park. Historical and Artistic Research of Yekateringof in St Petersburg]. In Iskusstvoznanie. No. 1, pp. 114–161.
Miller, A. I. (2008). Imperiya Romanovykh i natsionalizm. Esse po metodologii istoricheskogo issledovaniya [Romanov Empire and Nationalism. Essays in the Methodology of Historical Research]. Moscow, Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie. 248 p.
Nashchokina, M. V. (1997). Petrovskii dvorets i ego semanticheskaya interpretatsiya [Petrovsky Palace and Its Semantic Interpretation]. In Malafeeva, S. L. (Ed.). Tsarskie i imperatorskie dvortsy. Staraya Moskva. Moscow, Mosgorarkhiv, pp. 172–180.
Nechkina, M. V. (1984). Dekabristy [Decembrists]. 2nd Ed. Moscow, Nauka. 202 p.
Pechenkin, I. E. (2016). Frantsiya i Style Russe. O nekotorykh aspektakh mezhdunarodnykh khudozhestvennykh svyazei v XIX veke [France and Style Russe: On Some Aspects of International Artistic Relations in the 19th Century]. In Gruzdeva, G. F., Smirnova, I. K., Shagina, M. Yu. (Eds.). Rossiya – Frantsiya. Alliance kul’tur. Materialy XXII Tsarskosel’skoi nauchnoi konferentsii v 2 ch. St Petersburg, Serebryanyi vek. Part 2, pp. 67–78.
Rappaport, A. G. (2009). Dukh vremeni i arkhitektura XIX veka [Zeitgeist and 19th-Century Architecture]. In Azizyan, I. A. (Ed.). Ocherki istorii teorii arkhitektury Novogo i Noveishego vremeni. St Petersburg, Kolo, pp. 135–189.
Savitsky, E. E. (2017). Demony v zooparke. Sovremennoe iskusstvo i kolonizatsiya Severa v Rossii 1890‑kh godov [Demons at the Zoo: Contemporary Art and the Colonisation of the Far North in Russia in the 1890s]. In Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie. No. 144, pp. 260–284.
Sergeev, S. M. (2016). Byla li v Rossiiskoi imperii russkaya natsiya? “Kholodnaya voina” protiv imperatorskogo rezhima: russkie sosloviya, obezdvizhennye i ugnetennye [Was there a Russian Nation in the Russian Empire? “Cold War” against the Imperial Regime: Russian Estates, Immobilized and Oppressed]. In Gefter [internet-journal]. March 16. URL: http://gefter.ru/archive/17855 (accessed: 17.12.2022).
Shabanov, A. E. (2015). Peredvizhniki. Mezhdu kommercheskim tovarishchestvom i khudozhestvennym dvizheniem [The Peredvizhniki. Between a Commercial Partnership and an Art Movement]. St Petersburg, Izdatel’stvo Evropeiskogo universiteta v Sankt-Peterburge. 336 p.
Shvidkovsky, D. O. (2017). “Gotika” v russkoi arkhitekture poslednei chetverti XVIII stoletiya, ee angliiskie istochniki i zapadnoevropeiskie analogi [“Gothic” in Russian Architecture of the Last Quarter of the 18th Century, Its English Sources, and Western European Counterparts]. In Gotika Prosveshcheniya. Yubileinyi god Vasiliya Bazhenova. Katalog vystavki. Moscow, Fond “In Artibus”, pp. 33–70.
Slyun’kova, I. N. (2014). Proekty oformleniya koronatsionnykh torzhestv v Rossii XIX veka [Projects for Decorating Coronation Celebrations in 19th-Century Russia]. Moscow, BuksMArt. 440 p.
Sokolov, B. M. (2008). Russkaya Prussiya, ili Rozhdenie romanticheskogo sada [Russian Prussia, or the Birth of a Romantic Garden]. In Nashe nasledie [website]. No. 87. URL: http://www.nasledie-rus.ru/podshivka/8707.php (accessed: 17.12.2022).
Stasov, V. V. (1894). Frantsuzskaya kniga o russkom iskusstve [A French Book on Russian Art]. In Stasov, V. V. Sobranie sochinenii 1847–1886 v 4 t. St Petersburg, Tipografiya M. M. Stasyulevicha. Vol. 2. Khudozhestvennye stat’i. Part 3, col. 389–402.
Stasov, V. V. (1952). Dvadtsat’ pyat’ let russkogo iskusstva [Twenty-Five Years of Russian Art]. In Stasov, V. V. Izbrannye sochineniya v 3 t. / ed. by E. D. Stasova et al. Moscow, Iskusstvo. Vol. 2, pp. 391–568.
Stasov, V. V. (1952). Iskusstvo XIX veka. Arkhitektura [19th-Century Art. Architecture]. In Stasov, V. V. Izbrannye sochineniya v 3 t. / ed. by E. D. Stasova et al. Moscow, Iskusstvo. Vol. 3, pp. 485–506.
Stasov, V. V. (1952). Ot izdatel’stva [From the Publisher]. In Stasov, V. V. Izbrannye sochineniya v 3 t. / ed. by E. D. Stasova et al. Moscow, Iskusstvo. Vol. 1, n. p.
Taranovskaya, M. Z. (1980). Karl Rossi. Arkhitektor. Gradostroitel’. Khudozhnik [Carlo Rossi. Architect. Urbanist. Artist]. Leningrad, Stroiizdat. 223 p.
Vishlenkova, E. A. (2011). Vizual’noe narodovedenie imperii, ili “Uvidet’ russkogo dano ne kazhdomu” [A Visual Anthropology of the Empire, or “not everyone can see the Russian”]. Moscow, Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie. 384 p.
Vishlenkova, E. A. (2012). Proshloe pokazannoe (vtoraya polovina XVIII – pervaya chetvert’ XIX veka) [The Past Shown (Second Half of the 18th – First Quarter of the 19th Centuries)]. In Dmitriev, A. N. (Ed.). Istoricheskaya kul’tura imperatorskoi Rossii. Formirovanie predstavlenii o proshlom. Moscow, Izdatel’skii dom Vysshei shkoly ekonomiki, pp. 383–417.
Vlasyuk, A. I. (1972). Arkhitektura Rossii [Architecture of Russia]. In Baranov, N. V., Khan-Magomedov, S. O. (Ed.). Vseobshchaya istoriya arkhitektury v 12 t. Moscow, Stroiizdat. Vol. 10. Arkhitektura XIX – nachala XX vv., pp. 33–136.
Zorin, A. L. (2001). Kormya dvuglavogo orla… Literatura i gosudarstvennaya ideologiya v Rossii v poslednei treti XVIII – pervoi treti XIX veka [Feeding the Double-Headed Eagle… Russian Literature and State Ideology in the Last Third of the 18th – First Third of the 19th Centuries]. Moscow, Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie. 416 p.
