0:00:10 > 0:00:12We all knew what to paint.
0:00:12 > 0:00:14Bread.
0:00:14 > 0:00:15Work.
0:00:15 > 0:00:17Vote.
0:00:19 > 0:00:23But the message was workers of the world unite.
0:00:29 > 0:00:32Everyone was going to have equal rights.
0:00:32 > 0:00:35And that included the artists.
0:00:48 > 0:00:51Comrades, we are passing through one of the most critical,
0:00:51 > 0:00:54the most important moments of history,
0:00:54 > 0:00:59a moment when the world's socialist revolution is in the making.
0:00:59 > 0:01:02We need to mobilise the masses to progress fast.
0:01:02 > 0:01:06Art is the most powerful means of political propaganda
0:01:06 > 0:01:09for the triumph of the socialist cause.
0:01:11 > 0:01:14We are breaking with the past because we cannot accept
0:01:14 > 0:01:16its hypotheses.
0:01:16 > 0:01:21We ourselves are creating our own hypotheses, and only on them,
0:01:21 > 0:01:23as in our own inventions,
0:01:23 > 0:01:26can we build a new life and a new world view.
0:01:27 > 0:01:32More than anyone else, the artist knows this intuitively,
0:01:32 > 0:01:35and believes in it absolutely.
0:01:35 > 0:01:40That is exactly why artists above all undertook a revolution.
0:02:27 > 0:02:33My search for the new art for a new world started here in St Petersburg,
0:02:33 > 0:02:37where for centuries the vast Russian Empire had been controlled
0:02:37 > 0:02:43from the Winter Palace by the Tsars, who believed they had
0:02:43 > 0:02:47the divine right to rule with no elected government.
0:02:52 > 0:02:54They enjoyed a privileged life,
0:02:54 > 0:02:57while 80 % of Russians were peasants.
0:03:02 > 0:03:08Despite the abolition of serfdom in 1861, they still had no rights.
0:03:08 > 0:03:12So, in the early 1900s,
0:03:12 > 0:03:16the peasants flooded into the cities from all over the Empire,
0:03:16 > 0:03:17desperately seeking work.
0:03:20 > 0:03:22They formed the proletariat
0:03:22 > 0:03:27and united with a revolutionary approach to politics, and to art.
0:03:30 > 0:03:34For over a decade and through the First World War,
0:03:34 > 0:03:37discontent had been growing against Tsar Nicholas II.
0:03:42 > 0:03:46After the mass riots at the Women's Day March of February 1917,
0:03:46 > 0:03:49the Tsar was forced to abdicate
0:03:49 > 0:03:52and power ceded to the provisional government.
0:03:52 > 0:03:56But despite this, the voiceless people grew angrier.
0:04:02 > 0:04:04So, how did the artists respond?
0:04:07 > 0:04:11In July '17, photographer Viktor Bulla stood here
0:04:11 > 0:04:14at his studio window
0:04:14 > 0:04:17and took one of the most iconic images of the 20th century...
0:04:20 > 0:04:23..as the government troops opened fire on the crowd
0:04:23 > 0:04:25at a demonstration below.
0:04:25 > 0:04:33GUNFIRE
0:04:33 > 0:04:36In this street, on that day,
0:04:36 > 0:04:40hundreds were injured, and dozens lay dead.
0:04:51 > 0:04:53With tensions rising,
0:04:53 > 0:04:56the Bolshevik Party was gaining in popularity,
0:04:56 > 0:04:59and in October the awaiting crowd
0:04:59 > 0:05:02hailed the return of their exiled leader.
0:05:04 > 0:05:06Comrades, with all my might
0:05:06 > 0:05:09I urge you to realise that everything now hangs by a thread.
0:05:09 > 0:05:12We must not wait. We may lose everything.
0:05:12 > 0:05:14The government is tottering.
0:05:14 > 0:05:18It must be given the death blow at all costs.
0:05:20 > 0:05:23Many young artists were at the vanguard of the movement and joined
0:05:23 > 0:05:27the optimistic crowds on the streets looking forward to a new utopia.
0:05:31 > 0:05:33- TRANSLATION:- They were all revolutionaries.
0:05:33 > 0:05:37They fought at the barricades, fighting for the revolution.
0:05:37 > 0:05:41For them, the revolution was a breakthrough into the new world
0:05:41 > 0:05:45from the old world, which they were fed up with.
0:05:45 > 0:05:48It was the ambition of the young people, they were, then,
0:05:48 > 0:05:5018-20 years old.
0:05:50 > 0:05:56Naturally, they were striving ahead.
0:05:59 > 0:06:03Finally, the Bolsheviks closed in on the headquarters of the provisional
0:06:03 > 0:06:07government - the Tsar's Winter Palace.
0:06:11 > 0:06:13The whole revolution was planned
0:06:13 > 0:06:15at the example of the French Revolution.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18So, there was storming of Bastille,
0:06:18 > 0:06:20so you have the storming of Tuileries, so you had to storm
0:06:20 > 0:06:21Winter Palace.
0:06:23 > 0:06:27So, it was partly performance, and then it was made a performance.
0:06:27 > 0:06:30The famous film of Eisenstein, October,
0:06:30 > 0:06:35which shows the storming of the Winter Palace is an absolute lie.
0:06:36 > 0:06:41Russia's pioneering film director, Sergei Eisenstein,
0:06:41 > 0:06:45would portray the version of events the Bolsheviks wanted remembered.
0:06:45 > 0:06:51His masterpiece, October, which has influenced film-makers ever since,
0:06:51 > 0:06:55depicts the armed masses heroically streaming into the Winter Palace.
0:07:05 > 0:07:07Nothing of this kind ever happened.
0:07:07 > 0:07:11There was no storming, only a very few armed people who just got in
0:07:11 > 0:07:14and arrested the provisional government.
0:07:14 > 0:07:18It was peaceful. The Winter Palace was taken by the revolutionaries
0:07:18 > 0:07:20without a big fight.
0:07:20 > 0:07:23And they had been cutting the portraits of the Tsars
0:07:23 > 0:07:25which had been hanging in some of the places.
0:07:25 > 0:07:30This is most of the damage which... what happened in the Winter Palace.
0:07:30 > 0:07:33With the Bolsheviks now in power
0:07:33 > 0:07:36and Tsar Nicholas under house arrest in the Ural Mountains,
0:07:36 > 0:07:39the court photographer, Boasson,
0:07:39 > 0:07:43captures here an aristocratic era now at an end.
0:07:44 > 0:07:48The entire family were later executed by firing squad
0:07:48 > 0:07:51and thrown down a mine shaft.
0:07:55 > 0:07:59In 1918, the capital was moved to Moscow.
0:08:02 > 0:08:06Successive layers of history have buried this extraordinary period
0:08:06 > 0:08:07of turmoil.
0:08:09 > 0:08:12To find out more about the life and death survival
0:08:12 > 0:08:14of the great avant-garde artists,
0:08:14 > 0:08:17I wanted to delve beneath the anonymous face of the metropolis,
0:08:17 > 0:08:22go into the archives, and meet surviving descendants,
0:08:22 > 0:08:26many of whom are working artists in Russia today.
0:08:28 > 0:08:32Why don't you start off by telling me, who was your great-grandfather?
0:08:32 > 0:08:37My great-grandfather was an artist who lived in Moscow
0:08:37 > 0:08:40during the period of revolution.
0:08:42 > 0:08:46Fedor told me that his great-grandfather worked right here,
0:08:46 > 0:08:49in this Moscow apartment, 100 years ago.
0:08:49 > 0:08:51Through the open windows,
0:08:51 > 0:08:55he heard the church bells, which inspired him to create
0:08:55 > 0:08:58his architectural pictures.
0:09:00 > 0:09:06Lentulov loved very much Russian architecture but especially
0:09:06 > 0:09:08at the time of revolution,
0:09:08 > 0:09:14and he depicted crowds of moving people on a background
0:09:14 > 0:09:17of old Moscow churches.
0:09:21 > 0:09:23Long before 1917,
0:09:23 > 0:09:27a huge artistic revolution was already well under way,
0:09:27 > 0:09:30but it took the famous political events to unlock
0:09:30 > 0:09:35the massive outpouring of creativity in all fields of art.
0:09:35 > 0:09:41From 1900, or 1902, or 1903 up to 1915...
0:09:41 > 0:09:44Russian art became...
0:09:44 > 0:09:48I would say, the most avant-garde in the whole of the world.
0:09:52 > 0:09:57A giant in the avant-garde was Kazimir Malevich.
0:09:57 > 0:10:01His anarchistic attitude coincided perfectly with the Bolsheviks,
0:10:01 > 0:10:04and their promise of political change.
0:10:09 > 0:10:13Malevich, he was working on the theory of suprematism in Vitebsk.
0:10:13 > 0:10:17There were a group of people connected with Malevich,
0:10:17 > 0:10:21and he was a crazy man with his idea of suprematism.
0:10:23 > 0:10:26I have broken the blue boundary of colour limits.
0:10:26 > 0:10:28Come out into the white.
0:10:28 > 0:10:33Beside me, comrade pilots swim in this infinity.
0:10:33 > 0:10:36I have established the semaphore of suprematism.
0:10:36 > 0:10:41I have beaten the lining of the coloured sky, torn it away,
0:10:41 > 0:10:46and in the sack that formed itself, I have put colour and knotted it.
0:10:46 > 0:10:51Swim, the free white sea lies before you.
0:10:53 > 0:10:57The new step he did is trying to show ideas,
0:10:57 > 0:10:58not to show existing reality.
0:10:58 > 0:11:00His art is not about reality.
0:11:00 > 0:11:01He's very idealistic.
0:11:01 > 0:11:04It's a way the world can be structured.
0:11:04 > 0:11:07And this obviously comes from the cosmos.
0:11:22 > 0:11:25There are certain pieces that are wonderful, certain pieces that are
0:11:25 > 0:11:27completely absurd.
0:11:27 > 0:11:30And they're still absurd, but they're considered masterpieces,
0:11:30 > 0:11:31but they're absurd.
0:11:31 > 0:11:34Like, Black Square, I think it's absurd.
0:11:34 > 0:11:38So, can you explain to me what is the Black Square all about?
0:11:38 > 0:11:40Well, Malevich had, of course, painted the Black Square
0:11:40 > 0:11:44in the summer of 1915, and exhibited it at the end of 1915,
0:11:44 > 0:11:48and he placed his Black Square in the corners of the room,
0:11:48 > 0:11:52across the corners of the room in the position that an icon would have
0:11:52 > 0:11:55occupied in a Russian domestic interior.
0:11:55 > 0:12:01So, he was imbuing his Black Square with the metaphysical and spiritual
0:12:01 > 0:12:04connotations of the icon.
0:12:16 > 0:12:19Religion is opium for the people.
0:12:19 > 0:12:24Religion is a sort of spiritual booze in which the slaves of capital
0:12:24 > 0:12:26drown their human image,
0:12:26 > 0:12:31their demand for a life more or less worthy of man.
0:12:31 > 0:12:34The yoke of religion that weighs upon mankind
0:12:34 > 0:12:38is merely a product and reflection of the economic yoke within society.
0:12:41 > 0:12:46The mass movement of denying God
0:12:46 > 0:12:51or church by the young generation was extremely strong.
0:12:51 > 0:12:53As Dostoevsky said,
0:12:53 > 0:12:57"If there is no God, everything is allowed."
0:12:57 > 0:12:59"You can do everything if there is no God."
0:12:59 > 0:13:02So, that was the basis of the Russian Revolution.
0:13:02 > 0:13:08There were very young people that accepted the revolution immediately.
0:13:08 > 0:13:12And they fought White God, they fought church,
0:13:12 > 0:13:14they fought everything,
0:13:14 > 0:13:18trying to, first of all, destroy...
0:13:18 > 0:13:19the old...
0:13:21 > 0:13:25..without thinking what they're going to build instead.
0:13:27 > 0:13:31The Black Square is the end of the world
0:13:31 > 0:13:36and the beginning of the new world, like the big deluge, the big end.
0:13:36 > 0:13:40It's the symbol of the new beginning,
0:13:40 > 0:13:42and to begin something anew,
0:13:42 > 0:13:45you need to end everything that was before,
0:13:45 > 0:13:48but everything, and that's the Black Square.
0:13:48 > 0:13:52The Communist ban on religion would result in the systematic destruction
0:13:52 > 0:13:55of architectural symbols of worship.
0:13:55 > 0:13:59They chose Russia's most prominent cathedral of Christ the Saviour
0:13:59 > 0:14:03in Moscow and reduced it to rubble.
0:14:25 > 0:14:27For centuries, Russia's ruling
0:14:27 > 0:14:31classes had looked to Europe for cultural influence,
0:14:31 > 0:14:36and the artistic scene was dominated by the Imperial Academy of Arts
0:14:36 > 0:14:38in the then-capital Petrograd,
0:14:38 > 0:14:41where teaching was traditional figurative art.
0:14:45 > 0:14:46These students,
0:14:46 > 0:14:50mostly they are coming to the Academy to study classical art.
0:14:51 > 0:14:55And we're doing it for nearly a century until today,
0:14:55 > 0:14:58and it's the system of Academy.
0:14:58 > 0:15:00But by the beginning of the 20th century,
0:15:00 > 0:15:04the young artists wanted to break all these rules.
0:15:04 > 0:15:09It was the conflict between the school and the new way of thinking,
0:15:09 > 0:15:11and the new way of doing art.
0:15:11 > 0:15:13New strategy.
0:15:23 > 0:15:25Some of them came to change the world,
0:15:25 > 0:15:30because I think as artists they think they could change the world.
0:15:33 > 0:15:37The Academy is a mouldy vault in which art flagellates itself.
0:15:38 > 0:15:41Art no longer cares to serve the state and religion.
0:15:41 > 0:15:44It no longer wishes to illustrate the history of manners.
0:15:44 > 0:15:48It wants to have nothing further to do with the object, as such,
0:15:48 > 0:15:53and believes it can exist in and for itself without things.
0:15:55 > 0:16:00I have transformed myself in the zero of form and dragged myself out
0:16:00 > 0:16:04of the rubbish-filled pool of academic art.
0:16:12 > 0:16:14Well, artists were really
0:16:14 > 0:16:17confronting the Academy and the powers that be
0:16:17 > 0:16:21with art which outraged them, which was simplified,
0:16:21 > 0:16:23which was dramatically kind of colourful,
0:16:23 > 0:16:25ignored perspective,
0:16:25 > 0:16:28really did all the things that were against the Academy.
0:16:28 > 0:16:33And because of the connection between the Imperial household and
0:16:33 > 0:16:35the Imperial Academy,
0:16:35 > 0:16:37their rebellion against the Academy
0:16:37 > 0:16:41had a political connotation from the very word go.
0:16:52 > 0:16:57They were trying to be more modern, more avant-garde than the West.
0:16:57 > 0:16:58And that was...
0:17:00 > 0:17:02..very typical for Russian artists,
0:17:02 > 0:17:05that kind of
0:17:05 > 0:17:10extremist, and I would say tyrannist in art, in a sense, even.
0:17:11 > 0:17:14Painters flourished in this utopian period,
0:17:14 > 0:17:16including one of the greatest,
0:17:16 > 0:17:18Wassily Kandinsky.
0:17:18 > 0:17:20He was known as the father of
0:17:20 > 0:17:23abstraction and would change the course of painting forever.
0:17:27 > 0:17:31Abstract art places a new world which, on the surface,
0:17:31 > 0:17:34is nothing to do with reality next to the real world.
0:17:34 > 0:17:38Each colour lives by its mysterious life.
0:17:38 > 0:17:41In every painting, a whole is mysteriously enclosed.
0:17:43 > 0:17:47- TRANSLATION:- Kandinsky is a kind of
0:17:47 > 0:17:49a complicated story of a relationship
0:17:49 > 0:17:51with the Russian Revolution.
0:17:52 > 0:17:55Kandinsky created his own movement, abstraction.
0:17:58 > 0:18:02But Kandinsky's abstraction, in my view, was never separated.
0:18:02 > 0:18:04Unlike Malevich's suprematism,
0:18:04 > 0:18:07it was never removed completely from the image.
0:18:09 > 0:18:13He always mixed his abstraction with some kind of figurative images,
0:18:13 > 0:18:15similar to figurativism in his paintings.
0:18:21 > 0:18:23I let myself go.
0:18:23 > 0:18:26I thought little of the houses and trees and applied colour,
0:18:26 > 0:18:29stripes and spots to the canvas.
0:18:29 > 0:18:33Within me sounded the memory of early evening in Moscow.
0:18:33 > 0:18:38Before my eyes was the strong, colour-saturated scale of light and
0:18:38 > 0:18:41atmosphere which thundered deeply in the shadows.
0:18:43 > 0:18:48This era generated a massive number of very diverse artists,
0:18:48 > 0:18:51encouraged by the new freedom of expression.
0:18:51 > 0:18:53But not every one was in favour of
0:18:53 > 0:18:55the revolutionary avant-garde movement.
0:18:56 > 0:19:01In 1917, the Moscow-based painter Pyotr Konchalovsky,
0:19:01 > 0:19:03part of a cultural dynasty,
0:19:03 > 0:19:07was already a well-established and prolific artist.
0:19:07 > 0:19:09What about the politics?
0:19:09 > 0:19:11How did he fit in with political events in Russia?
0:19:11 > 0:19:14Was he a political animal?
0:19:14 > 0:19:16At that time, the artists that were left wing,
0:19:16 > 0:19:19the artists of avant-garde,
0:19:19 > 0:19:22they wanted to...
0:19:22 > 0:19:24To go more left,
0:19:24 > 0:19:28more revolutionary than it's supposed to be.
0:19:28 > 0:19:31My grandfather was, you know, doing
0:19:31 > 0:19:34nature mortes and portraits,
0:19:34 > 0:19:37and I think he started to be regarded by that
0:19:37 > 0:19:43revolutionary part of artists as a conservative person.
0:19:44 > 0:19:48But he was very satisfied with this point of view.
0:19:48 > 0:19:53He didn't want to jump on this wagon of modern art,
0:19:53 > 0:19:56that it was always
0:19:56 > 0:19:59far beyond even Cubism.
0:19:59 > 0:20:02It started to go into abstract.
0:20:02 > 0:20:06And he's stayed...
0:20:06 > 0:20:09Basically, he's stayed with the truth.
0:20:09 > 0:20:12As he realised, for him, the truth was his art.
0:20:13 > 0:20:16If you analyse the background,
0:20:16 > 0:20:21just the wall, you analyse the colours that are used in the grey,
0:20:21 > 0:20:24you realise it's not a grey.
0:20:24 > 0:20:27It's a full
0:20:27 > 0:20:31rainbow of colours that give you more grey than grey itself.
0:20:31 > 0:20:33That's Cezanne.
0:20:39 > 0:20:42The huge amount of art produced in this period
0:20:42 > 0:20:46was piled up in museum stores,
0:20:46 > 0:20:49surviving for decades as only a myth.
0:20:54 > 0:20:56In St Petersburg,
0:20:56 > 0:20:58I was fascinated by this treasure
0:20:58 > 0:21:00trove of unique work by an individual
0:21:00 > 0:21:03called Pavel Filonov.
0:21:03 > 0:21:07Barely known outside Russia, he remains an enigma in the West.
0:21:12 > 0:21:14I was drawn in by the tiny little
0:21:14 > 0:21:17brushes Filonov used to show every atom
0:21:17 > 0:21:18in the human body.
0:21:22 > 0:21:26He created his own formula of the revolution in a new style which he
0:21:26 > 0:21:28called analytical realism.
0:21:32 > 0:21:35Filonov had a big following because
0:21:35 > 0:21:37he came from a very simple background,
0:21:37 > 0:21:39a sick son of a cab man.
0:21:40 > 0:21:43The workers felt he was one of them,
0:21:43 > 0:21:44and they really liked his art.
0:22:05 > 0:22:07The Bolsheviks appointed the art
0:22:07 > 0:22:10critic Nikolay Punin as their arts commisar.
0:22:10 > 0:22:12He was close to Malevich and one of
0:22:12 > 0:22:15the most passionate supporters of the avant-garde movement.
0:22:18 > 0:22:20- TRANSLATION:- He highly appreciated all of them,
0:22:20 > 0:22:27despite the fact that they were very different.
0:22:27 > 0:22:29The attitude to the revolution was
0:22:29 > 0:22:32changing greatly throughout his life.
0:22:32 > 0:22:35Maybe in the first revolutionary years he was a romantic.
0:22:35 > 0:22:42He thought that the revolution could be some kind of cleansing.
0:22:49 > 0:22:53Since the artists were on the bread line, with no money for paint,
0:22:53 > 0:22:57they needed worker status to get food coupons.
0:22:57 > 0:23:01But Commissar Punin could help them, and a new visual arts department was
0:23:01 > 0:23:06set up. The grand surroundings of the former Tsar was where they met.
0:23:07 > 0:23:11We're here to discuss art and art for the masses.
0:23:11 > 0:23:16I want to know what you all propose for the promotion of our glorious
0:23:16 > 0:23:19October 1917 revolution.
0:23:19 > 0:23:23Avant-garde artists were the ones who were young, they were keen,
0:23:23 > 0:23:29they wanted to participate in all the new artistic reforms.
0:23:29 > 0:23:33They were the ones who were at the right time at the right place.
0:23:35 > 0:23:41They were artists from different sides of Russian avant-garde.
0:23:41 > 0:23:46And quite often they couldn't even agree on the same developments in
0:23:46 > 0:23:49- Russian art. - How is a black square relevant?
0:23:49 > 0:23:51Because a black square can be shaped.
0:23:51 > 0:23:54You're saying it's like you created the shape.
0:23:54 > 0:23:56I didn't create the shape. I created the concept.
0:23:56 > 0:23:58You're asking somebody who wears
0:23:58 > 0:24:00clogs, who has never seen a picture in his life,
0:24:00 > 0:24:02to come and have a look at it and actually take it seriously.
0:24:02 > 0:24:06Yes, that person understands a square, doesn't he or she?
0:24:06 > 0:24:07All people understand emotion.
0:24:07 > 0:24:11- Exactly.- No-one understands a black square on a white background.
0:24:11 > 0:24:13It can mean anything.
0:24:13 > 0:24:17You put forth a singular idea understood by a bunch of
0:24:17 > 0:24:20pseudo-intellectuals, it'll mean nothing to anyone.
0:24:20 > 0:24:23We have to be looking at the next 100 years.
0:24:23 > 0:24:25What's going to be hanging in the Winter Palace in 100 years' time?
0:24:25 > 0:24:28- Exactly.- What do you think? - Will it be the Black Square?
0:24:28 > 0:24:32- I've got a pretty good idea it could be the Black Square.- Thank you, sir.
0:24:36 > 0:24:41The Bolsheviks turned to the avant-garde artists who were quite
0:24:41 > 0:24:47enthusiastic about this revolution because this coincided with their
0:24:47 > 0:24:52concepts of the world, which is
0:24:52 > 0:24:54for 100% changing.
0:24:55 > 0:24:59So, it was a kind of combination of
0:24:59 > 0:25:03circumstances which brought them together.
0:25:03 > 0:25:05Lenin announced a decree for the
0:25:05 > 0:25:08immediate switch at the Institute of Arts
0:25:08 > 0:25:10in Moscow and Academy of Arts in
0:25:10 > 0:25:14Petrograd from traditional to avant-garde art.
0:25:14 > 0:25:17So, it was the Free Artists' Studio,
0:25:17 > 0:25:20then the Institute of Proletarian Art, then another one.
0:25:20 > 0:25:25After 1918, there were a lot of changes inside the Academy,
0:25:25 > 0:25:28new professors like Petrov-Vodkin.
0:25:28 > 0:25:30And he's from outside.
0:25:30 > 0:25:32He's not from the Academy.
0:25:34 > 0:25:40I should say that Petrov-Vodkin was the first artist who used the
0:25:40 > 0:25:43spherical perspective in his paintings,
0:25:43 > 0:25:47in the still lives, in landscapes.
0:25:47 > 0:25:50It was the conception of three colours,
0:25:50 > 0:25:54and spherical dimensions,
0:25:54 > 0:25:56spherical perspective.
0:25:56 > 0:25:58- TRANSLATION:- Respect and admiration,
0:25:58 > 0:25:59these are the feelings that I have
0:25:59 > 0:26:02towards Petrov-Vodkin, my grandfather.
0:26:04 > 0:26:07He was born in a small town of Khvalynsk on the Volga River
0:26:07 > 0:26:13in the family of a maid and a shoemaker.
0:26:13 > 0:26:15Petrov-Vodkin reacted
0:26:15 > 0:26:19enthusiastically to the revolution and it's known
0:26:19 > 0:26:22that he was one of the six cultural figures who came voluntarily to work
0:26:22 > 0:26:24with the Soviet authorities.
0:26:24 > 0:26:27He was confident that the creative powers of the Russian people would
0:26:27 > 0:26:30be able to rise and make a brand-new country.
0:26:35 > 0:26:37Very soon after the October Revolution,
0:26:37 > 0:26:41Lenin announced his plan for monumental propaganda.
0:26:42 > 0:26:47Comrades, I intend to decorate Russia's squares with statues and
0:26:47 > 0:26:51monuments to revolutionaries and the great fighters for socialism,
0:26:51 > 0:26:55the likes of Karl Marx, and the heroes of the French Revolution.
0:26:55 > 0:26:57These monuments will be street
0:26:57 > 0:27:00pulpits from which fresh messages will flow
0:27:00 > 0:27:03and inspire the consciousness of the masses.
0:27:03 > 0:27:05We must make a marriage of
0:27:05 > 0:27:09convenience with the artists who are keen and democratic.
0:27:09 > 0:27:11My plan for monumental propaganda
0:27:11 > 0:27:14needs to be executed fast and efficiently.
0:27:18 > 0:27:22At the time, they couldn't afford to make sculptures out of bronze,
0:27:22 > 0:27:26for example, so it was all temporary materials,
0:27:26 > 0:27:28so they often were not very well preserved,
0:27:28 > 0:27:30especially with Russian winters.
0:27:30 > 0:27:33I uncovered this rare archive film in Moscow.
0:27:33 > 0:27:36It's about the only record of these propaganda sculptures,
0:27:36 > 0:27:39as barely any have survived to this day.
0:27:40 > 0:27:43They were mainly heroes of the French Revolution,
0:27:43 > 0:27:46Italian rebellions,
0:27:46 > 0:27:49because they didn't have enough Russian heroes at the time.
0:27:49 > 0:27:53A lot of sculptures to Tsars and generals
0:27:53 > 0:27:56who were popular in Imperial Russia
0:27:56 > 0:27:59were removed and replaced by the new sculptures,
0:27:59 > 0:28:03so it was a victory of new art over the old.
0:28:04 > 0:28:07It was quite fascinating how in the first years after the revolution,
0:28:07 > 0:28:09at the time of starvation, when
0:28:09 > 0:28:11there was no electricity in Petrograd,
0:28:11 > 0:28:14people were freezing, starving,
0:28:14 > 0:28:17huge funds were allocated for decorations of the city.
0:28:26 > 0:28:31This square, that was the main square of the Russian Empire,
0:28:31 > 0:28:34Nathan Altman, who was the artist of the revolution,
0:28:34 > 0:28:37he did several very nice designs of the square,
0:28:37 > 0:28:39using this column as a centre and
0:28:39 > 0:28:42making a star around it, the Red Star,
0:28:42 > 0:28:44and also different slogans would appear everywhere.
0:29:04 > 0:29:06I would say the revolution
0:29:06 > 0:29:09established this connection between art and
0:29:09 > 0:29:15politics because politics wanted artists to create its world,
0:29:15 > 0:29:17wanted artists to create the image of the new country.
0:29:17 > 0:29:21That's why artists were engaged to play with the revolution.
0:29:22 > 0:29:26Another artist, the legendary Marc Chagall,
0:29:26 > 0:29:29was commissioned to decorate his hometown of Vitebsk,
0:29:29 > 0:29:30here at the celebration
0:29:30 > 0:29:33of the first anniversary of the Bolshevik uprising.
0:29:35 > 0:29:37He was liberated by the revolution.
0:29:38 > 0:29:41Previously, Jews were prohibited to move beyond the pale,
0:29:41 > 0:29:44the line of settlement established by the Tsars,
0:29:44 > 0:29:48100 kilometres away from Moscow and Petrograd.
0:29:48 > 0:29:50The revolution gave all the Jews
0:29:50 > 0:29:53freedom to come because they were just
0:29:53 > 0:29:55people of a new country, and they could come and go,
0:29:55 > 0:29:57and, of course, he was inspired by
0:29:57 > 0:30:01this new revelation that the revolution brought out.
0:30:01 > 0:30:05Much of Chagall's subject matter is symbolic of his Jewish roots in his
0:30:05 > 0:30:09hometown, where he and his wife Bella grew up.
0:30:10 > 0:30:12This important work is one of
0:30:12 > 0:30:15Russia's gems and shows the liberating power
0:30:15 > 0:30:18of art and imagination over oppression.
0:30:18 > 0:30:21This painting of floating figures is absolutely a dream.
0:30:21 > 0:30:23It's something that can't happen.
0:30:23 > 0:30:27And this is a dream that comes from this small village.
0:30:27 > 0:30:29This very, very prescribed life
0:30:29 > 0:30:32and very detailed everyday living.
0:30:36 > 0:30:41He's trying to fly out, come to a dream, to a love story,
0:30:41 > 0:30:43and that is, of course, the dream
0:30:43 > 0:30:47that was given by the new reality that he was living in.
0:30:55 > 0:30:56I discovered that the Russian
0:30:56 > 0:31:00avant-garde flourished across all cultures, including the stage.
0:31:00 > 0:31:04The revolution opened doors to brand-new radical artists,
0:31:04 > 0:31:06who enthused each other with their ideas.
0:31:11 > 0:31:13Theatre director Vsevolod Meyerhold
0:31:13 > 0:31:15was a member of the Bolshevik party.
0:31:15 > 0:31:17His quirky experiments in
0:31:17 > 0:31:21unconventional new Soviet theatre were very popular.
0:31:22 > 0:31:26Rarely practised today, this technique for training actors,
0:31:26 > 0:31:28known as biomechanics,
0:31:28 > 0:31:30was used to learn movement and
0:31:30 > 0:31:34express emotion physically by assuming poses and gestures.
0:32:39 > 0:32:43Another pro-revolutionary artist was Aleksander Rodchenko.
0:32:43 > 0:32:48Aged 26 at the time of the revolution and highly prolific,
0:32:48 > 0:32:50he taught at the same Moscow art school
0:32:50 > 0:32:53where his grandson lectures today.
0:32:53 > 0:32:56So can you please describe your grandfather,
0:32:56 > 0:32:58what kind of artist he was?
0:32:58 > 0:33:02I have the image of a very tall figure.
0:33:02 > 0:33:05Whom I definitely know that is my grandfather.
0:33:05 > 0:33:09Later on, after my mother Barbara's stories,
0:33:09 > 0:33:12I learned a lot of him.
0:33:12 > 0:33:18We can consider Rodchenko to be the founder in many areas.
0:33:18 > 0:33:24Almost in every lecture, we somehow remind our students of his heritage,
0:33:24 > 0:33:30because he worked as a multifaceted artist in so many areas.
0:33:32 > 0:33:37We know that he laid down this concept of contemporary photography,
0:33:37 > 0:33:43valuing the real, journalistic, documentary view of events.
0:33:44 > 0:33:51His way of doing layout and graphic design is also very well recognised.
0:33:59 > 0:34:05Usually, people don't pay attention to such things as different angles.
0:34:07 > 0:34:11He took this famous high and low angle
0:34:11 > 0:34:15with this absolutely silly,
0:34:15 > 0:34:20absolutely small and amateurish Kodak camera.
0:34:27 > 0:34:30You know, if he wouldn't be a photographer,
0:34:30 > 0:34:33he would definitely be a film-maker.
0:34:33 > 0:34:38Because everything that he did had this sort of kinetic background.
0:34:46 > 0:34:49The way we walk around the street,
0:34:49 > 0:34:52the way we get into the streetcar,
0:34:52 > 0:34:55the way we are standing in queues,
0:34:55 > 0:35:01and Rodchenko paid attention to such very tiny effects of everyday life
0:35:01 > 0:35:07and activity and he reduced it all with his ability as an artist.
0:35:07 > 0:35:10So there are a lot of things that
0:35:10 > 0:35:14are important for us today which were laid down by this talent.
0:35:30 > 0:35:34Rodchenko's design work included posters and set design for his
0:35:34 > 0:35:39collaborator, the revolutionary documentary film-maker Dziga Vertov,
0:35:39 > 0:35:42who was aged just 22 in 1917.
0:35:44 > 0:35:47Vertov was pushing the boundaries of experimentation
0:35:47 > 0:35:49with editing and cinematography.
0:36:21 > 0:36:24In Moscow, I met Maria Kulagina,
0:36:24 > 0:36:26an artist whose grandfather, for me,
0:36:26 > 0:36:29is a true hero of the revolutionary period.
0:36:30 > 0:36:37- TRANSLATION:- Gustav Klutsis was a very well-known artist in his time.
0:36:37 > 0:36:38He knew and worked together with
0:36:38 > 0:36:43such people as Rodchenko and Malevich.
0:36:43 > 0:36:46Klutsis was from a peasant background in Latvia,
0:36:46 > 0:36:48and moved to Moscow before the
0:36:48 > 0:36:52revolution as a fully paid-up member of the Communist party.
0:36:52 > 0:36:55He's seen here having taken part in the Battle of Moscow,
0:36:55 > 0:36:59in Lenin's car in the summer of 1918.
0:37:01 > 0:37:04Klutsis was one of the major figures of the generation.
0:37:04 > 0:37:07He was the inventor of the so-called photomontage.
0:37:42 > 0:37:45Our family is an artistic family.
0:37:45 > 0:37:48My parents, my grandma and grandad,
0:37:48 > 0:37:50my children and my husband, too.
0:37:50 > 0:37:52Everyone is an artist.
0:37:54 > 0:37:57Maria told me about her grandmother,
0:37:57 > 0:37:59Valentina Kulagina.
0:37:59 > 0:38:02Married to Klutsis, she was also a pioneering artist.
0:38:04 > 0:38:06She also did a lot of posters,
0:38:06 > 0:38:09where she worked independently as an artist in her own right.
0:38:11 > 0:38:14First of all, they all believed in the new political regime.
0:38:14 > 0:38:17They absolutely believed that everything would be great,
0:38:17 > 0:38:20socialism would win, that Communism would come,
0:38:20 > 0:38:23and it would be something totally new.
0:38:23 > 0:38:25And their art was in line with this.
0:38:25 > 0:38:30They wanted to destroy the old and create the new.
0:38:34 > 0:38:36The new political freedom won by
0:38:36 > 0:38:39Russian women after they got the vote
0:38:39 > 0:38:41gave them equality, and a platform for their art.
0:38:48 > 0:38:51These artists flourished in the revolutionary climate.
0:38:54 > 0:38:59Non-objective creativity is a movement of the spirit.
0:38:59 > 0:39:01A protest against the narrow
0:39:01 > 0:39:05materialism and naturalism that has begun to control life.
0:39:05 > 0:39:08This has been particularly characteristic for Russia,
0:39:08 > 0:39:10where our smart young painters have
0:39:10 > 0:39:12come to negate the object and painting.
0:39:15 > 0:39:17And this is understandable,
0:39:17 > 0:39:21since Russia has long been a country of the spirit.
0:39:25 > 0:39:28Varvara Stepanova, who came from peasant stock,
0:39:28 > 0:39:32was aged 23 at the time of the revolution,
0:39:32 > 0:39:33and was married to Rodchenko.
0:39:35 > 0:39:39It's interesting how they could live together,
0:39:39 > 0:39:42because it's always difficult to
0:39:42 > 0:39:47find peaceful coexistence of two creative persons.
0:39:48 > 0:39:52In my compositions, geometric abstraction plays a key role.
0:39:56 > 0:40:02Colour, sound and form come together, arming the imagination.
0:40:33 > 0:40:35Revolutionary politics and art also
0:40:35 > 0:40:38influenced architectural engineering.
0:40:39 > 0:40:43A constructivist radio tower in Moscow was designed to broadcast
0:40:43 > 0:40:45Lenin's propaganda to the masses.
0:40:46 > 0:40:49Tell me about the tower.
0:40:49 > 0:40:53This is a Moscow radio inclusion tower.
0:40:53 > 0:40:57But the main name and more understandable name for
0:40:57 > 0:41:00everyone everywhere is the Shukhov Tower,
0:41:00 > 0:41:04of course, because that's the name of the engineer who made it.
0:41:04 > 0:41:06Vladimir Shukhov.
0:41:06 > 0:41:09It was a dream of Vladimir Shukhov, before the revolution,
0:41:09 > 0:41:12and he starts to make kind of the calculations
0:41:12 > 0:41:15and starts to think about the design.
0:41:15 > 0:41:18Obviously, a broadcasting tower,
0:41:18 > 0:41:21because he understands very well in the future
0:41:21 > 0:41:23of the human civilisation,
0:41:23 > 0:41:28they start to transmit information through big and long distance.
0:41:41 > 0:41:45In a vast empire with a largely illiterate population,
0:41:45 > 0:41:47Lenin cleverly used the avant-garde
0:41:47 > 0:41:51artists again to spread the message of socialism.
0:41:52 > 0:41:55So they created these educational trains,
0:41:55 > 0:41:59which were covered with avant-garde paintings,
0:41:59 > 0:42:01and then they did some posters.
0:42:01 > 0:42:04And in the carriages they would have lectures,
0:42:04 > 0:42:06and they would show films.
0:42:06 > 0:42:08The film maker Dziga Vertov was
0:42:08 > 0:42:11taking part in this propaganda programme,
0:42:11 > 0:42:14and spent three years running a cinema car on the trains.
0:42:23 > 0:42:27They would go to all over the Soviet Union
0:42:27 > 0:42:29and tell them who Lenin was,
0:42:29 > 0:42:32and why Marx was so important,
0:42:32 > 0:42:35and trains played a major role in this process.
0:42:42 > 0:42:44Aleksander Rodchenko embraced this
0:42:44 > 0:42:48new artistic medium of agitational design.
0:42:48 > 0:42:50They were agitating for literacy.
0:42:50 > 0:42:56If you remember the famous poster with Lilya Brik shouting, "Books,"
0:42:56 > 0:42:59you can understand what I mean.
0:42:59 > 0:43:04So it's a very strong image, a very strong agitational image,
0:43:04 > 0:43:08which is copied, by now, everywhere.
0:43:08 > 0:43:12It tends to be an icon of agitation.
0:43:17 > 0:43:20In my exploration of the museum's stores,
0:43:20 > 0:43:23I found this rare agitational propaganda,
0:43:23 > 0:43:26kept out of the public eye in Russia since the 1920s.
0:43:26 > 0:43:28These prototype collages were
0:43:28 > 0:43:32developed for posters and festive street decorations.
0:43:33 > 0:43:36Revolution and art and politics are very much connected.
0:43:36 > 0:43:40So an artist is not somebody who creates his own life,
0:43:40 > 0:43:44but he is in service to the revolution.
0:43:44 > 0:43:47You must obey the population, and you must obey the party.
0:43:47 > 0:43:49You must obey the revolution.
0:43:58 > 0:44:01This new propaganda art brought many people to the Bolshevik way of
0:44:01 > 0:44:05thinking. But others disagreed with Lenin.
0:44:05 > 0:44:09So with revolution came civil war.
0:44:09 > 0:44:12The Red Army pitted against the Whites.
0:44:21 > 0:44:24With the Government over-requisitioning grain,
0:44:24 > 0:44:26and two years of drought,
0:44:26 > 0:44:30another era of mass starvation developed across rural Russia.
0:44:30 > 0:44:32Cannibalism was rife,
0:44:32 > 0:44:35and up to 10 million people died.
0:44:39 > 0:44:41The revolution was a big problem.
0:44:41 > 0:44:44Basically, it was a total disaster for many people.
0:44:44 > 0:44:47And artists, only, they tried to build a new world,
0:44:47 > 0:44:49and try to feel themselves part of this.
0:44:49 > 0:44:51But the reality was very poor.
0:44:51 > 0:44:55- TRANSLATION:- What amazes me in
0:44:55 > 0:44:58Petrov-Vodkin is that he was able to turn ordinary, simple
0:44:58 > 0:45:00subjects into some kind of symbols.
0:45:06 > 0:45:10Then he always felt the difference between what he expressed in the
0:45:10 > 0:45:12paintings, that is the high notes of the revolution,
0:45:12 > 0:45:14and what was really going on.
0:45:19 > 0:45:22- TRANSLATION:- He was a deeply Russian person.
0:45:22 > 0:45:24That is what kept him in St Petersburg,
0:45:24 > 0:45:28hungry and cold during this twisted time.
0:45:30 > 0:45:33The conditions he had to work in at the Academy,
0:45:33 > 0:45:38well, they caused dismay.
0:45:39 > 0:45:41This tragic deprivation fuelled
0:45:41 > 0:45:45strong anti-Bolshevik feeling among the population.
0:45:45 > 0:45:49In 1921, after the suppression of a massive rebellion,
0:45:49 > 0:45:52there followed a wave of arrests across the country.
0:45:54 > 0:45:57The Red Terror was announced by Lenin,
0:45:57 > 0:46:04because he realised that in order to keep order in the country full
0:46:04 > 0:46:10of disillusioned people, hungry and cold, you had to scare them somehow,
0:46:10 > 0:46:16and introduce some form of terror to make sure that they obey party
0:46:16 > 0:46:20orders, and that another revolution, counterrevolution, doesn't occur.
0:46:22 > 0:46:26There was a cultural exodus across all fields of art.
0:46:26 > 0:46:29Russia would lose many of its most talented artists,
0:46:29 > 0:46:32who were forced to flee their homeland,
0:46:32 > 0:46:34some never to return.
0:46:39 > 0:46:41- TRANSLATION:- Kandinsky,
0:46:41 > 0:46:45his art of the post-revolutionary period has more a tone of alarm,
0:46:45 > 0:46:49of anxiety, and so his works between the end of the 1910s and the
0:46:49 > 0:46:53beginning of the 1920s are not optimistic.
0:46:53 > 0:46:55This is, perhaps,
0:46:55 > 0:46:58the most important thing that defines Kandinsky's work before his
0:46:58 > 0:47:01departure from Russia, which was in 1922.
0:47:04 > 0:47:06The more frightening the world becomes,
0:47:06 > 0:47:08the more art becomes abstract.
0:47:09 > 0:47:13The nightmare of materialism which has turned the life of the universe
0:47:13 > 0:47:17into an evil, useless game is not yet passed.
0:47:17 > 0:47:19It holds the awakening soul still in its grip.
0:47:21 > 0:47:23When he fled to Germany,
0:47:23 > 0:47:25Kandinsky was forced to abandon some
0:47:25 > 0:47:29of his best and largest canvases in his Moscow studio.
0:47:32 > 0:47:37In 1923, Marc Chagall also emigrated.
0:47:37 > 0:47:40He joined many of his fellow countrymen in France,
0:47:40 > 0:47:43where he experienced more artistic freedom,
0:47:43 > 0:47:47but his Russian roots remained all-present in his work.
0:47:55 > 0:47:57The Bolsheviks won the civil war,
0:47:57 > 0:48:00but the Russian economy was now in tatters,
0:48:00 > 0:48:03and industry was at a tenth of its prewar level.
0:48:04 > 0:48:07Lenin needed to resuscitate the Russian economy,
0:48:07 > 0:48:10and the artists would be key.
0:48:10 > 0:48:16In 1921, Lenin introduced New Economic Policy, called NEP,
0:48:16 > 0:48:22trying to bring the small trade back, co-operatives were open again.
0:48:22 > 0:48:24Private tradesmen and state
0:48:24 > 0:48:27companies were competing to sell their goods.
0:48:27 > 0:48:29Many of the posters designed by
0:48:29 > 0:48:32artists like Rodchenko were marketing their products.
0:48:32 > 0:48:36This idea completely contradicted the principles of Communism.
0:48:36 > 0:48:40They were literally selling peasants back the grain they'd grown.
0:48:40 > 0:48:43Workers, do not be afraid of high prices and New Economic Policy.
0:48:43 > 0:48:45Buy cheap bread!
0:48:46 > 0:48:49I eat cookies from a Red October factory.
0:48:50 > 0:48:52It was successful,
0:48:52 > 0:48:56except that it meant that you had the danger from the Communist Party
0:48:56 > 0:49:01point of view of redeveloping capitalist elements in society.
0:49:01 > 0:49:03You are not a Soviet citizen if you
0:49:03 > 0:49:06do not invest in the national airline.
0:49:06 > 0:49:08One golden ruble makes everyone a shareholder.
0:49:13 > 0:49:16But there was a growing dissatisfaction with the leadership.
0:49:32 > 0:49:371922 saw an assassination attempt when Lenin was shot.
0:49:40 > 0:49:45Incapacitated, he was still leader but unable to assert power.
0:49:47 > 0:49:52Russia's next ruler was already waiting on the sidelines,
0:49:52 > 0:49:54bringing with him his own version of Communism
0:49:54 > 0:49:57and his own ideas for art.
0:49:58 > 0:50:02When Lenin dies in January 1924,
0:50:02 > 0:50:07this is a great opportunity for the Bolsheviks to substitute a different
0:50:07 > 0:50:09kind of religion.
0:50:11 > 0:50:15That religion was the cult of Lenin,
0:50:15 > 0:50:18and it was initiated by his successor, Josef Stalin.
0:50:20 > 0:50:23The cross was replaced with a hammer and sickle,
0:50:23 > 0:50:25and Lenin's mausoleum in Red Square
0:50:25 > 0:50:28became the people's place of pilgrimage.
0:50:29 > 0:50:32Even Petrograd was renamed Leningrad.
0:50:35 > 0:50:38Russia's artists were put to work by Stalin,
0:50:38 > 0:50:40creating statues and imagery,
0:50:40 > 0:50:42this time of Lenin.
0:50:45 > 0:50:47But Stalin forced many painters to
0:50:47 > 0:50:52turn away from the avant-garde to the style of socialist realism,
0:50:52 > 0:50:55a new form of propaganda depicting
0:50:55 > 0:50:58an ideal world of industrious Soviet workers.
0:51:02 > 0:51:08The Bolsheviks had realised that there are artists around them
0:51:08 > 0:51:14which could be more useful for them than those crazy avant-garde artists
0:51:14 > 0:51:20who were doing something which politicians didn't understand,
0:51:20 > 0:51:24and didn't feel that this is
0:51:24 > 0:51:28explaining or transferring to the minds
0:51:28 > 0:51:31of the people the existing official ideology.
0:51:31 > 0:51:33Stalin was very keen on artists
0:51:33 > 0:51:35and he cared a great deal about them,
0:51:35 > 0:51:38because he saw them very much as engineers of human souls,
0:51:38 > 0:51:41in a famous phrase that Marx had used.
0:51:41 > 0:51:45He thought that art could be used to persuade people to adhere to the
0:51:45 > 0:51:48system and to participate in public life.
0:51:49 > 0:51:52This portrait was painted by Pavel Filonov,
0:51:52 > 0:51:56and marked a huge swing in his style from
0:51:56 > 0:51:58abstract to socialist realism.
0:52:00 > 0:52:04Censorship by the new regime also hit Sergei Eisenstein.
0:52:05 > 0:52:08On the day of October's premiere,
0:52:08 > 0:52:09Stalin came into the editing room
0:52:09 > 0:52:12and forced him to alter scenes that
0:52:12 > 0:52:16didn't fit his political agenda, including cutting out Trotsky,
0:52:16 > 0:52:18his political rival.
0:52:21 > 0:52:23There was a great period of
0:52:23 > 0:52:25inventiveness that came just before and after
0:52:25 > 0:52:27the revolution, but it was really
0:52:27 > 0:52:30that inventiveness that Stalin wanted to stifle.
0:52:30 > 0:52:33He didn't want people who were revolutionary and who would continue
0:52:33 > 0:52:35thinking creatively and who would
0:52:35 > 0:52:38come up with alternatives to what he was doing.
0:52:38 > 0:52:40What he wanted was unity,
0:52:40 > 0:52:42and he wanted everybody to think the
0:52:42 > 0:52:45same and he wanted them to paint in the same way.
0:52:45 > 0:52:46And the avant-garde,
0:52:46 > 0:52:50because they were by definition people who thought creatively,
0:52:50 > 0:52:52were a problem for him from the very beginning.
0:53:01 > 0:53:03This shift in thinking saw the
0:53:03 > 0:53:06return of the Academy of Art in Leningrad
0:53:06 > 0:53:08to its centuries-old traditions.
0:53:10 > 0:53:13They understand that they need to have all this, you know?
0:53:13 > 0:53:15Emblems of Empire,
0:53:15 > 0:53:18classical schools,
0:53:18 > 0:53:20with architecture, sculpture,
0:53:20 > 0:53:24traditional techniques or traditional style and traditional...
0:53:26 > 0:53:28And then things change,
0:53:28 > 0:53:32and for the Academy at that time it was a very good period,
0:53:32 > 0:53:36because they came back to the past.
0:53:40 > 0:53:44As you want to become an official artist and get state commissions,
0:53:44 > 0:53:48and richly paid by the state, you do official art.
0:53:48 > 0:53:51If you want to be an individual, you become a nonconformist.
0:53:52 > 0:53:56If you're able to do it, you stay with us.
0:53:56 > 0:53:58If you're not, if you don't want, we don't care,
0:53:58 > 0:54:00you go to the other door.
0:54:04 > 0:54:08- TRANSLATION:- The ideological restrictions that the state imposed
0:54:08 > 0:54:10on the works of artists broke Petrov-Vodkin.
0:54:13 > 0:54:14Subjects were strictly regulated.
0:54:14 > 0:54:17There was an agonising search for a
0:54:17 > 0:54:19new type which would appeal to the commissioner.
0:54:21 > 0:54:24This painful condition,
0:54:24 > 0:54:28it undermines the artist. His creativity runs dry.
0:54:33 > 0:54:35It was a big battle in the field of art,
0:54:35 > 0:54:39initiated by the party and the realists,
0:54:39 > 0:54:43people who painted real objects from real-life.
0:54:43 > 0:54:47The Academy, in the old sense, they won.
0:54:47 > 0:54:50And people like Malevich, they didn't.
0:54:50 > 0:54:53But he forced himself to do it, so he tried to paint realism.
0:54:57 > 0:55:01He turned into the area of figurative art,
0:55:01 > 0:55:03also understanding
0:55:03 > 0:55:09that he has in his hands the means
0:55:09 > 0:55:11which are not abstract, but which
0:55:11 > 0:55:14are expressing something very similar
0:55:14 > 0:55:17to what his abstract works were expressing, and, again,
0:55:17 > 0:55:21expressing the drama and tragedy of time.
0:55:33 > 0:55:37And would you say the artists, the artists of the avant-garde,
0:55:37 > 0:55:39were victims or vanguard to Stalinism?
0:55:39 > 0:55:43It's hard for me to say that Malevich himself
0:55:43 > 0:55:46was the victim of what he had invented.
0:55:46 > 0:55:51He had reflected the need of the time more than maybe any other
0:55:51 > 0:55:54artist in Russia.
0:55:56 > 0:56:00We need lots of letters from artists pointing out the incorrect bias in
0:56:00 > 0:56:04the artistic policy that is being pursued by many comrades,
0:56:04 > 0:56:07and which is leading art in a fatal direction,
0:56:07 > 0:56:13despite the party's resolution that all trends have a right to develop.
0:56:13 > 0:56:14At the present time,
0:56:14 > 0:56:19during the building of socialism in which all the arts must participate,
0:56:19 > 0:56:24must art return to a backward position and become figurative?
0:56:27 > 0:56:31Malevich and two of his students, Suetin and Chashnik,
0:56:31 > 0:56:34who were both important avant-garde artists, worked in the state
0:56:34 > 0:56:36porcelain factory,
0:56:36 > 0:56:40but they weren't happy doing Stalin's socialist realism.
0:56:40 > 0:56:42Here, alone, they were able to
0:56:42 > 0:56:45continue creating with their suprematist designs.
0:56:55 > 0:56:58- TRANSLATION:- When they didn't have money or anything else,
0:56:58 > 0:57:00this was the only place where they could create form,
0:57:00 > 0:57:03which they wanted to create.
0:57:03 > 0:57:06Malevich was making these teacups and cups,
0:57:06 > 0:57:08and Suetin as well was creating vases.
0:57:10 > 0:57:14These were practically all suprematist shapes,
0:57:14 > 0:57:16and it was the only place where
0:57:16 > 0:57:21they could calmly do it all.
0:57:21 > 0:57:24In decorative arts like porcelain,
0:57:24 > 0:57:26a certain leeway was possible and
0:57:26 > 0:57:30there were abstract designs until quite late.
0:57:30 > 0:57:32Easel painting became the arena
0:57:32 > 0:57:36where government control was exerted most strongly.
0:57:39 > 0:57:42Other artists embraced this new socialist realism,
0:57:42 > 0:57:45like the painter Pyotr Kotov,
0:57:45 > 0:57:48whose style was known as Russian impressionism.
0:57:48 > 0:57:50His work would be useful for the new regime.
0:57:52 > 0:57:55Normally, he painted rural scenes.
0:57:59 > 0:58:03But in the period of Stalin's five-year plan of industrialisation,
0:58:03 > 0:58:05when they wanted to convince the
0:58:05 > 0:58:08world of Russia's industrial prowess,
0:58:08 > 0:58:10Kotov would gain many new state commissions.
0:58:14 > 0:58:15- TRANSLATION:- There were special
0:58:15 > 0:58:18trips organised for Soviet artists, artistic brigades,
0:58:18 > 0:58:23that were sent to different construction sites.
0:58:23 > 0:58:26Sometimes he stayed there longer than was necessary,
0:58:26 > 0:58:29or he returned on his own accord if
0:58:29 > 0:58:32he wasn't able to finish something before.
0:58:32 > 0:58:34It was impossible, of course, to
0:58:34 > 0:58:37sell these works to anyone but the state.
0:58:48 > 0:58:50He, by the way,
0:58:50 > 0:58:53was among one of the first offered to paint a portrait of Stalin.
0:58:53 > 0:58:56He asked, "And how many sessions can I expect?"
0:58:56 > 0:58:58They replied, "Are you crazy?
0:58:58 > 0:59:01"Which sessions? Photography, and that's it."
0:59:01 > 0:59:05"But I do not paint from photos. I paint only from nature."
0:59:05 > 0:59:08And he refused to make a portrait of Stalin.
0:59:08 > 0:59:14Afterwards, everybody was afraid they would come for him.
0:59:14 > 0:59:18In 1937, Stalin addressed the Russian people.
0:59:45 > 0:59:47Stalin's decrees actually resulted
0:59:47 > 0:59:52in what became known as the Great Purge. In the year that followed,
0:59:52 > 0:59:55hundreds of people would be shot every day,
0:59:55 > 1:00:00and the population of the Gulag prison system rose dramatically.
1:00:00 > 1:00:03The definition of who was a political criminal changed so much,
1:00:03 > 1:00:05and changed and evolved over time,
1:00:05 > 1:00:08and it meant that really almost anybody could go there,
1:00:08 > 1:00:12and the fact of its existence served to make people afraid.
1:00:12 > 1:00:14It made people cautious about what they said,
1:00:14 > 1:00:18what they thought, and, of course, what they did and, in this context,
1:00:18 > 1:00:20what they wrote or painted.
1:00:20 > 1:00:23There started to come the decrees,
1:00:23 > 1:00:25signed by the highest state authorities,
1:00:25 > 1:00:29to destroy these collections of the art of the avant-garde.
1:00:29 > 1:00:31The specialists from the State Russian Museum,
1:00:31 > 1:00:35they kept them behind the door,
1:00:35 > 1:00:40which they painted and put plaster on it,
1:00:40 > 1:00:42so nobody knew that behind this
1:00:42 > 1:00:45wall was a real door and it was real storage.
1:00:45 > 1:00:47But many of the works which were in
1:00:47 > 1:00:51Moscow and many of the works which were in these regional museums
1:00:51 > 1:00:55were burned and destroyed in the '30s,
1:00:55 > 1:00:57and even as late as 1952.
1:00:57 > 1:01:01I heard some of the museum directors who worked at the time in those
1:01:01 > 1:01:03museums, what they were doing,
1:01:03 > 1:01:06that they were taking the canvases from the stretchers,
1:01:06 > 1:01:08hiding the canvases, and putting
1:01:08 > 1:01:12them like sheets of paper and burning the stretchers.
1:01:13 > 1:01:16Secrecy still remains over how much
1:01:16 > 1:01:18of the avant-garde art was destroyed,
1:01:18 > 1:01:21and how much the museum curators helped to save.
1:01:29 > 1:01:32But a lot of it survives in this store in Moscow.
1:01:32 > 1:01:35Here, I found another treasure trove of art,
1:01:35 > 1:01:38much of which rarely sees the light of day,
1:01:38 > 1:01:41by artists like Gustav Klutsis.
1:01:44 > 1:01:46- TRANSLATION:- I think that Klutsis
1:01:46 > 1:01:48believed the new government very much.
1:01:49 > 1:01:51He hoped that the world would really change.
1:01:55 > 1:01:57Klutsis really wanted to save this
1:01:57 > 1:01:59painting because the persecution against
1:01:59 > 1:02:01the formalism began at the time and
1:02:01 > 1:02:04he brought the work to the Tretyakov Gallery.
1:02:04 > 1:02:07We had it in storage for a long time and, strictly speaking,
1:02:07 > 1:02:08it has been preserved.
1:02:11 > 1:02:15It's not just the art that struggled to survive through the Stalin years.
1:02:15 > 1:02:17Many of the avant-garde artists
1:02:17 > 1:02:20themselves were declared enemies of the state
1:02:20 > 1:02:23and were victimised along with their work.
1:02:23 > 1:02:27What happened to the artists, really, many of them,
1:02:27 > 1:02:29as well as writers,
1:02:29 > 1:02:34poets, scientists, went to Gulag or were executed.
1:02:34 > 1:02:37But you should understand that this
1:02:37 > 1:02:40had happened to every second or third
1:02:40 > 1:02:42family in the country.
1:02:42 > 1:02:45Like, if you would ask me, the two
1:02:45 > 1:02:49grand-grandparents of my daughters
1:02:49 > 1:02:51were victims of the regime.
1:02:51 > 1:02:54One was shot in 24 hours as a German spy, and another one,
1:02:54 > 1:02:58my grandfather, spent 20 years in Gulag.
1:03:01 > 1:03:04Stalin's purges lasted for decades.
1:03:04 > 1:03:06And many artists would not survive.
1:03:09 > 1:03:13Nikolay Punin, the commissar who championed the avant-garde through
1:03:13 > 1:03:17the revolutionary years, was arrested and taken away.
1:03:23 > 1:03:25Many of the artists were exiled to
1:03:25 > 1:03:29Gulag camps in the frozen reaches near the Arctic Circle,
1:03:29 > 1:03:32making escape and communication almost impossible.
1:03:34 > 1:03:36There, they were put to forced
1:03:36 > 1:03:39labour in the name of the socialist cause.
1:03:43 > 1:03:45- TRANSLATION:- On the way to Vologda,
1:03:45 > 1:03:48there is a transit point and Nikolay Nikolayevich managed to send a
1:03:48 > 1:03:50letter from Vologda. He threw the
1:03:50 > 1:03:52letter from a window of the carriage.
1:03:59 > 1:04:02Somebody picked the letter up and, thank God, sent it to us.
1:04:04 > 1:04:07In this letter, he wrote that he was at the transit point and now there
1:04:07 > 1:04:13was the most difficult phase ahead to the final destination.
1:04:13 > 1:04:17Where, he did not know.
1:04:17 > 1:04:19When he arrived at this village in October,
1:04:19 > 1:04:23the letters from there were arriving quickly enough afterwards.
1:04:23 > 1:04:26But you could write only one letter in six months.
1:04:32 > 1:04:34Frosts are very severe there.
1:04:34 > 1:04:36Snowfalls are up to seven metres high.
1:04:38 > 1:04:41And the harsh climate, of course,
1:04:41 > 1:04:44influenced the health of Nikolay Nikolayevich.
1:04:44 > 1:04:49He died on 21st of August at 12:20pm.
1:04:58 > 1:05:01Others also suffered.
1:05:05 > 1:05:08- TRANSLATION:- There was the World's Fair of Arts in Paris,
1:05:08 > 1:05:11and Klutsis designed the Soviet art pavilion.
1:05:11 > 1:05:13He did it beautifully, and after
1:05:13 > 1:05:18that it seemed that his career would only get better.
1:05:18 > 1:05:22But when he came back to Russia,
1:05:22 > 1:05:24the wave of repressions began
1:05:24 > 1:05:27and, being Latvian by origin, he
1:05:27 > 1:05:30fell under the millstones of history.
1:05:37 > 1:05:39- TRANSLATION:- Gustav Klutsis who
1:05:39 > 1:05:41depicted Stalin, in my opinion, in the best possible manner,
1:05:41 > 1:05:44aesthetic, powerful,
1:05:44 > 1:05:48and suddenly he was arrested as an enemy of the people.
1:05:48 > 1:05:53This happened in January, 1938.
1:05:53 > 1:05:56Along with the Klutsis art,
1:05:56 > 1:06:00I was able to uncover these arrest files in KGB archives,
1:06:00 > 1:06:04and not made public until 1990s Perestroika.
1:06:04 > 1:06:07Klutsis, once driven through Moscow in Lenin's car,
1:06:07 > 1:06:11was now vilified for being the first generation of Bolsheviks.
1:06:14 > 1:06:16- TRANSLATION:- I saw his famous
1:06:16 > 1:06:19profile in the scary Gulag photos where he is shot from
1:06:19 > 1:06:21the front and from the side.
1:06:21 > 1:06:23Of course, my grandmother,
1:06:23 > 1:06:25Valentina Kulagina, did her best to help him.
1:06:27 > 1:06:28The life and art of those people
1:06:28 > 1:06:32were truly devoted to the revolution and Stalin.
1:06:32 > 1:06:34They couldn't understand what was going on.
1:06:34 > 1:06:36Why is this happening to them?
1:06:37 > 1:06:41The documents from the Soviet era also reveal the full horror of
1:06:41 > 1:06:44suffering that prisoners were subjected to.
1:06:46 > 1:06:49In order to gain confessions to trumped-up charges,
1:06:49 > 1:06:53severe beatings were commonplace as well as starvation,
1:06:53 > 1:06:56sleep deprivation, and psychiatric torture.
1:07:04 > 1:07:06- TRANSLATION:- There were very long interrogations.
1:07:06 > 1:07:13I actually read these documents. It certainly was horrible.
1:07:16 > 1:07:21Previously, they were written by hand and signed,
1:07:21 > 1:07:24but then they were just printed on the typewriter and you can
1:07:24 > 1:07:26see how he signs it.
1:07:26 > 1:07:29It becomes physically hard for him to sign the papers.
1:07:34 > 1:07:37On the night of February 26th,
1:07:37 > 1:07:41when they sent the group of prisoners to be shot, he, in fact,
1:07:41 > 1:07:42was not alive.
1:07:45 > 1:07:47Klutsis died during the interrogations.
1:08:01 > 1:08:07What saved Rodchenko, from my point of view, was that in the '30s,
1:08:07 > 1:08:13when these political reasons were the main reasons for judging
1:08:13 > 1:08:18the art, he was doing such things that were absolutely needed.
1:08:18 > 1:08:22He was taking photography, because the magazine
1:08:22 > 1:08:25USSR In Construction, which he co-operated,
1:08:25 > 1:08:28was an international magazine,
1:08:28 > 1:08:31printed in five languages.
1:08:31 > 1:08:33You know, the Rodchenko photographs
1:08:33 > 1:08:35were meant to be propaganda photographs,
1:08:35 > 1:08:40and they show men hard at work and interesting, new-looking,
1:08:40 > 1:08:42sort of modern angles on this canal construction,
1:08:42 > 1:08:45and there are people playing instruments and so on.
1:08:45 > 1:08:46But the White Sea canal was
1:08:46 > 1:08:49publicised as a kind of socialist project.
1:08:49 > 1:08:53"This camp is going to reform criminals and capitalists,
1:08:53 > 1:08:56"and it's going to make them into good Soviet citizens."
1:08:56 > 1:08:58And it was really a propaganda
1:08:58 > 1:09:00response to criticism that came from the
1:09:00 > 1:09:03West and from inside the Soviet Union about the camp system.
1:09:03 > 1:09:05It was a show camp, if you will.
1:09:05 > 1:09:08It was designed to be photographed, and artists were sent to paint it
1:09:08 > 1:09:10and writers were sent to describe it.
1:09:10 > 1:09:16The quality of his work helped him to find jobs.
1:09:16 > 1:09:20But what was evil in this situation
1:09:20 > 1:09:23was that not artistic reasons were
1:09:23 > 1:09:27announced for separating good from bad,
1:09:27 > 1:09:32but political and ideological reasons were announced.
1:09:32 > 1:09:35That was a great harm to art
1:09:35 > 1:09:41and to artists, because nobody could feel himself safe.
1:09:49 > 1:09:51- TRANSLATION:- I often say that I am a night-time person,
1:09:51 > 1:09:55because, since my childhood, all my life happened at night.
1:09:55 > 1:09:58My parents, father and mother, lived at night,
1:09:58 > 1:10:04because all the arrests happened at night.
1:10:04 > 1:10:07And when at night it was all quiet,
1:10:07 > 1:10:09if someone walked in hard-heeled shoes,
1:10:09 > 1:10:11you could hear him very well.
1:10:11 > 1:10:16That is why we always listen whether someone was coming or not.
1:10:19 > 1:10:21By 1949,
1:10:21 > 1:10:24Suetin's time had come,
1:10:24 > 1:10:27and his name appeared on the list of people to be arrested.
1:10:27 > 1:10:31But first, the chair of the Union of Artists was consulted.
1:10:32 > 1:10:35There was Suetin's last name,
1:10:35 > 1:10:38and when he saw his surname he said,
1:10:38 > 1:10:41"You've gone completely mad," and crossed his name out.
1:10:41 > 1:10:44And it saved my father.
1:10:59 > 1:11:01- TRANSLATION:- Today, we might think
1:11:01 > 1:11:04that there was no real threat for Petrov-Vodkin because,
1:11:04 > 1:11:07first of all, he was seen as socially equal.
1:11:07 > 1:11:08He wasn't an aristocrat, but
1:11:08 > 1:11:10he was one of the workers and peasants.
1:11:13 > 1:11:17Secondly, he was always quite cautious in political statements.
1:11:17 > 1:11:19He never made any political declarations.
1:11:19 > 1:11:22Several times in 1933 and 1934,
1:11:22 > 1:11:25he applied to the authorities for permission to go abroad for health
1:11:25 > 1:11:29reasons. But they never let him go.
1:11:29 > 1:11:32Pyotr Konchalovsky also survived the purges.
1:11:32 > 1:11:36You know, before I thought that he made a mistake.
1:11:36 > 1:11:40I thought he should have gone to Paris, he should have gone...
1:11:40 > 1:11:44He should have stayed there and he would have been known in the West.
1:11:44 > 1:11:47And now I realise I was wrong.
1:11:47 > 1:11:50He thought if he would stay here,
1:11:50 > 1:11:54he would be more free to stay where he is
1:11:54 > 1:11:57than to go in the West and be
1:11:57 > 1:11:59unable to sell himself.
1:12:01 > 1:12:06Another artist who finally remained in Russia was Kazimir Malevich.
1:12:07 > 1:12:11Despite his work being banned, he escaped the purges...
1:12:12 > 1:12:15..dying instead of cancer in 1935.
1:12:19 > 1:12:24Meyerhold was strongly opposed to socialist realism,
1:12:24 > 1:12:28and in the early 1930s, during Stalin's repressions,
1:12:28 > 1:12:30his theatre was closed down.
1:12:32 > 1:12:35He was arrested in June 1939,
1:12:35 > 1:12:37brutally tortured,
1:12:37 > 1:12:40and finally put to death by firing squad.
1:12:54 > 1:12:56GUNSHOT
1:12:59 > 1:13:02The photographer, Viktor Bulla, fell
1:13:02 > 1:13:07victim himself to political change when he was shot by firing squad,
1:13:07 > 1:13:09falsely charged with espionage.
1:13:09 > 1:13:10ECHOING GUNSHOT
1:13:12 > 1:13:14Other artists who had collaborated
1:13:14 > 1:13:18closely with the regime were lucky and survived.
1:13:18 > 1:13:23In 1953, Pyotr Kotov was to gain his final state commission,
1:13:23 > 1:13:25that portrait of Stalin.
1:13:27 > 1:13:30- TRANSLATION:- They came to pick up Kotov,
1:13:30 > 1:13:32and they said, "Get Ready, Dr Ivanovich."
1:13:34 > 1:13:36He basically gathered all his paints
1:13:36 > 1:13:39and they took him to the Pillar Hall of the House of the Unions
1:13:39 > 1:13:41together with several other artists.
1:13:41 > 1:13:44So in the end, he painted Stalin from nature,
1:13:44 > 1:13:48but in a coffin, and he was, if the word fits, glad.
1:14:07 > 1:14:11The art produced in the Revolutionary era of Russia has
1:14:11 > 1:14:14outlived both the artists and the politics.
1:14:16 > 1:14:19I think the legacy, while it existed, it was wonderful art,
1:14:19 > 1:14:24it was young art that didn't feel that any borders do exist.
1:14:24 > 1:14:26And so they
1:14:26 > 1:14:28presented wonderful examples of this.
1:14:28 > 1:14:32It's a change but it's a great example,
1:14:32 > 1:14:37which brought wonderful masterpieces in the collection of Russian art and
1:14:37 > 1:14:40made Russian art once again famous and good.
1:14:40 > 1:14:43Avant-garde always fights classical museums.
1:14:43 > 1:14:45But avant-garde inside always wants
1:14:45 > 1:14:47to be part of this museum in the future.
1:14:47 > 1:14:51Even one of the most iconic works was once mothballed,
1:14:51 > 1:14:53hidden away in a potato crate.
1:14:53 > 1:14:57It's now worth millions and hangs in the State Hermitage
1:14:57 > 1:14:59alongside da Vinci and Rembrandt.
1:15:00 > 1:15:04Malevich's Black Square was a story, an anecdote.
1:15:04 > 1:15:08Nobody really knew who he was and it was all hidden and destroyed.
1:15:08 > 1:15:13And in all the intelligentsia circles, it was known.
1:15:13 > 1:15:15So he was the myth.
1:15:15 > 1:15:17He was a mythological figure himself,
1:15:17 > 1:15:19as well as many other people like Kandinsky and so on.
1:15:23 > 1:15:26In contemporary art, of course, when it was possible and the Soviet Union
1:15:26 > 1:15:28was starting to collapse,
1:15:28 > 1:15:31there were artists trying to come back to these stories and,
1:15:31 > 1:15:34you know, non-conformist became now official art
1:15:34 > 1:15:36and the best art of the country.
1:15:41 > 1:15:47It's not any more prohibited fruit that you have to strive for.
1:15:47 > 1:15:48It's just part of the history now.
1:15:51 > 1:15:53All this big exhibition of Russian
1:15:53 > 1:15:57avant-garde in New York, London, Paris,
1:15:57 > 1:16:00of a certain period was connected with
1:16:00 > 1:16:04some ideas of changes in Russia.
1:16:05 > 1:16:07It was connected with these changes.
1:16:08 > 1:16:12The country's not changed totally, but there were some changes and
1:16:12 > 1:16:15avant-garde was the banner of these changes.
1:16:23 > 1:16:26What the artists created over 100 years ago
1:16:26 > 1:16:29was far more than just a utopian dream.
1:16:29 > 1:16:32It's outlived Russian socialism and
1:16:32 > 1:16:35its influence surrounds us today.
1:16:37 > 1:16:39It was a generation of artists who
1:16:39 > 1:16:42produced some of the most breathtaking
1:16:42 > 1:16:44images and who went through and
1:16:44 > 1:16:48experienced some of the most terrible times,
1:16:48 > 1:16:50and in a sense,
1:16:50 > 1:16:53their heroic struggle both with the past and with the present,
1:16:53 > 1:16:58as they experienced it in Soviet Russia, is an inspiration today.
1:17:03 > 1:17:08Maybe, as such a concept,
1:17:08 > 1:17:11it could be and it is of interest,
1:17:11 > 1:17:14but also I think that everybody understands
1:17:14 > 1:17:18that that was a political coincidence
1:17:18 > 1:17:20that the state supported this,
1:17:20 > 1:17:23because at that moment that was
1:17:23 > 1:17:28the only way of spreading their ideology around.
1:17:28 > 1:17:33So I don't think that anybody wants this to be repeated again.
1:17:35 > 1:17:38In their pursuit of a new art for a new world,
1:17:38 > 1:17:41the artists of the Russian revolutionary period
1:17:41 > 1:17:46have left a lasting legacy which has transformed the world of art.
1:17:48 > 1:17:51I have destroyed the ring of the horizon
1:17:51 > 1:17:54and escaped from the circle of things.
1:17:54 > 1:17:57From the horizon ring which confines the artist
1:17:57 > 1:17:59and the forms of nature.
1:17:59 > 1:18:02Forms move and are born,
1:18:02 > 1:18:05and we make newer and newer discoveries.
1:18:06 > 1:18:09And what I reveal to you, do not conceal.
1:18:10 > 1:18:13And it is absurd to force our age
1:18:13 > 1:18:16into the old forms of time past.