The unsung hero of the Russian avant-garde [electronic resource] : the life and times of Nikolay Punin / by Natalia Murray.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Murray, Natalia.

Series:

Russian history and culture (Leiden, Netherlands) ; v. 9.

Russian history and culture, 1877-7791 ; v. 9

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Art critics--Russia--Biography.

Art critics.

Art critics--Soviet Union--Biography.

Art, Russian--Russia--20th century--History.

Art, Russian.

Art, Russian--Soviet Union--History.

Avant-garde (Aesthetics)--Russia--History.

Avant-garde (Aesthetics).

Avant-garde (Aesthetics)--Soviet Union--History.

Punin, N. N. (Nikolaĭ Nikolaevich).

Punin, N. N.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (439 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This book is the first biography of Nikolay Punin (1888-1953). One of the most prominent art-critics of the avant-garde, in 1919 Punin was the Commissar of the Hermitage and Russian Museums, he was lecturing at the Academy of Arts and at the State University in Petrograd (and subsequently Leningrad). He was the right hand of Lunacharsky and the head of the Petrograd branch of the Visual Arts Department of Narkompross. From 1913 till 1938, Punin worked at the Russian Museum and organized several major exhibitions of Russian art. Yet his name is not widely known in the West, primarily because his file languished in the KGB archives since he died in 1953, partly because his grave in the Gulag where he died is marked only by a number, and partly because his own reputation became submerged under that of his lover, poet and writer Anna Akhmatova. Through the life and inheritance of Nikolay Punin, this book will examine the very phenomenon of the Russian avant-garde and its fate after the October Revolution, as well as the artistic trends and cultural policies which dominated Soviet art in the 1930-1950s. For an interview with the author on The Voice of Russia (July 19th, 2012): click here .

Contents:

Preliminary Material

Introduction

Chapter One Origins of the Hero

Chapter Two Education

Chapter Three Winds of Change: The First World War and Emergence of the New Creativity in Russia

Chapter Four The Dawn of New Hopes: The October Revolution and the Search for New Art

Chapter Five No Future for the Futurists? Attempts to Educate the Masses

Chapter Six Gathering Clouds, But High Heart

Chapter Seven The Slow Strangulation of Free Culture

Chapter Eight The Victory of Socialist Realism

Chapter Nine Time of Terror

Chapter Ten The Great Patriotic War

Chapter Eleven The Broken Post-War Dreams

Chapter Twelve Bitter End

Bibliography of Published Writings of N. Punin

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786613723475

90-04-22559-5

1-280-88216-6

OCLC:

799766325

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789004225596 DOI