Following the Revolution, the Party faced many problems left over from the Old Russia. Not only did they have to battle alcoholism and contain the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church, but they had to establish a new culture altogether. Leon Trotsky, in a Pravda article titled “Vodka, the Church, and the Cinema” proposes […]
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Reading Sheila Fitzpatrick’s study has given us insight about the scope of political, economic, and social change the Russian Revolution inspired. Of necessity, the Bolsheviks’ overarching concern was political — they needed to secure and maintain political authority. Yet they also believed that the revolution must be secured by profound changes in economic relationships, and assumed that those changes must […]
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On Thursday we will continue our work on Revolutionary Cinema and prepare for the next round of posts. We will finish watching Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin and discuss the film using Dziga Vertov’s “We: Variant of a Manifesto” (RR, pp. 365-369); Trotsky, “Vodka, the Church, and the Cinema,” and Blyakin’s “The Little Red Devils” (MC pp. 36-52) Please complete these in […]
Read moreDuring the period of time around the Russian Revolution, avant-garde art flourished. Lyubov Popova became known as one of the most important artists of the period. Popova was born to a cultured family in 1889. She studied at several prestigious Russian schools of art while in her late teens and early twenties. Around 1910, she […]
Read moreRussian futurism emerged in 1912 primarily around the appreciation of modernity and human technological achievement. The futurists looked to the bustling commotion of growing cities, their rising skylines and chaotic sprawls for inspiration. Most of the work that came out of the futurist school captured in some ways both the literal movement of urban life and the movement of mankind, […]
Read moreThe Bolshevik (1919-1920), Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev was no stranger to hardship. At a young age, his father passed away …
This week’s blogpost is about a Russian futurism. This idea and style of both art and literary work had a very prominent Russian figure named Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky. The idealism behind this was to get rid of the normal traditional ways of Russian life, and to embrace industrialism and change within their society. Russian futurists liked […]
The Bolshevik (1919-1920), Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev was no stranger to hardship. At a young age, his father passed away …
This week’s blogpost is about a Russian futurism. This idea and style of both art and literary work had a very prominent Russian figure named Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky. The idealism behind this was to get rid of the normal traditional ways of Russian life, and to embrace industrialism and change within their society. Russian futurists liked […]
The Russian avant-garde was a movement during the Soviet Union from the period of 1890-1930. While this movement doesn’t correspond with any particular style, there were many sub-movements under the Russian avant-garde era that took on their own unique…
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