Central Asia in Art

From Soviet Orientalism to the New Republics

Aliya Abykayeva-Tiesenhausen

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781838608125
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Arte
• Subtopic: Historia del arte

In the midst of the space race and nuclear age, Soviet Realist artists were producing figurative oil paintings. Why? How was art produced to control and co-opt the peripheries of the Soviet Union, particularly Central Asia? Presenting the 'untold story' of Soviet Orientalism, Aliya Abykayeva-Tiesenhausen re-evaluates the imperial project of the Soviet state, placing the Orientalist undercurrent found within art and propaganda production in the USSR alongside the creation of new art forms in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. From the turmoil of the 1930s through to the post-Stalinist era, the author draws on meticulous new research and rich illustrations to examine the political and social structures in the Soviet Union - and particularly Soviet Central Asia - to establish vital connections between Socialist Realist visual art, the creation of Soviet identity and later nationalist sentiments.

ONE

THE POLITICS OF MULTINATIONALISM

MESSAGES FROM THE CENTRE

The period 1934 to 1953 marks the establishment of Socialist Realism as the official Soviet style and therefore the only accept able style not only in which to write but, crucially, in which to create art, and ends with the death of Stalin and, with it, the beginning of a fragile era of post-Stalinism. This post-mortem period entailed the chaotic continuation of Stalinist doctrines following Stalin’s death, before the condemnation of the Stalin personality cult and subsequent de-Stalinisation. Both dates form important brackets for the artistic style of Socialist Realism. However, they also permit a discussion of the colonial structures that lie behind the Soviet state. Central Asian republics, as part of the Soviet Union, gained their political and geographical form during the 1930s, and the following decades shaped inter-state relationships with Soviet Russia. This suggests that the term ‘imperial’ was not only applicable to the Tsarist past, but also to the Soviet present and, so it seemed for a while, to the Communist future.

The art of the Soviet period, in particular Russian depictions of Central Asia, the Soviet centre’s views of the periphery, came about through the construction of institutional apparatus for the implementation of Socialist Realism. The political and social constructs surrounding both Soviet art and Soviet Central Asian policies existed as the basis of Soviet visual production, and constituted separate forms of power. Increasingly, artistic, social and political structures within the Soviet East were intricately and inevitably linked to the USSR’s centre.

Archival and contemporary material related to the Socialist Realist era in Soviet art and society reveals that two interlinked processes were happening simultaneously.¹ A clear expression of this binary process can be found in an essay by Hans Günther, a writer and editor of works on Soviet art. Quoting Walter Benjamin, Günther states that the aestheticisation of politics on the one hand, and the politicisation of aesthetics on the other, are interacting tendencies.²

‘Dreamworlds become dangerous when their enormous energy is used instrumentally by structures of power, mobilised as an instrument of force that turns against the very masses who were supposed to benefit.’³ It is possible to argue that the problem of nationalities was one of the most difficult for the USSR; it remained unresolved for the duration of the existence of the country and in the end served as a main factor in the dissolution process that took place between 1986 and 1991. Cultural relationships between Central Asia and Russia are unbalanced to this day – yet another reason to further the enquiry into Soviet modes of representation and their role and power in myth-construction and myth-sustaining.

The Union of Nations

One of the central roles in the ‘thematic plan’ is given to Stalin’s Union of Nations, which demonstrates the vitality and strength of the USSR, friendship between the Kazakh nation and the Great Russian nation and other nations of the USSR.⁴

The Soviet Hymn proclaimed that free republics were united by a Great Russia and made it quite clear that ‘free’ denotes neither independent nor equal.⁵

The Soviet Union’s basic structure was a grouping of nations. These nations were represented in two main forms. Some nations or ethnicities were shaped as separate national republics, such as Kazakh SSR. Others were identified as autonomous republics, such as Tatar ASSR within the largest republic, known as the RSFSR (Russian Socialist Federate Soviet Republic), or within other republics. Such divisions were neither natural nor historic. Furthermore, these identifications and statuses changed in the early years of the USSR. For example, the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic – initially named the Kirghiz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic – was first an autonomous republic within the RSFSR, from 1920, but later became a full Union Republic of the USSR in 1936.

5. Stepan Karpov, Friendship of the Peoples, 1923–4. Oil on canvas, 205 × 248, State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia.

The main borders of the Soviet Union as a whole were based on the pre-1917 borders of the Russian Empire. However, the borders within the Union were realised after the revolution. Central Asia proved to be one of the more problematic areas for ethnic and national division. To this day there exists a belief, on the levels of both common and academic understanding, that the division was made for two main purposes. The first was to divide a power that, as a unified state, could prove too hard for post-revolutionary Russia to handle, the second, more arguable reason, being to make sure that the new so-called nations would constantly be struggling for certain territories, which each side would perceive as their own.

As the painting Friendship of Peoples (1923–4, fig. 5) by Stepan Karpov demonstrates, the concept of friendship was portrayed as a driving force for progress. The new age is symbolised by an artificially sunny landscape which includes fields, houses and machinery, and an aeroplane in flight; the future also sends rays of light from the right-hand side of this large-scale canvas. This is a history painting about the future, infused with theatrical special effects. The props highlight the unity of agriculture and industry, thus revealing one of the main tropes of the era, namely heavy industrialisation in a previously agricultural economy. The heroes in action, all male, step out of the shadows, clad in national costumes and holding theatrical poses. Three white men stand at the front, closely followed by a Caucasian, a Ukrainian and then an Uzbek.⁶ The procession, at least the visible part of it, culminates with the sight of an illuminated (read enlightened) man from the Soviet North.⁷ The road to progress, as we understand it, is taken by these men and their nations in the same order; not all together but one after another, with one leading and the others following.

This early Soviet painting was created before Socialist Realism officially came into existence, hence the outward theatricality of the set – something that will be replaced by quasi-realistic yet progressive spaces in later Soviet art. This work is by no means a masterpiece of early Soviet art, but it provides a valuable point of comparison for Socialist Realist works painted a decade later. The fact that, even in Soviet terms, it is less of an artwork and more of a document is further exemplified by the fact that it belongs not to an art museum, but to the State Museum of Modern Russian History in Moscow. Yet it is not a document of history itself – the revolution was not fought by all nations simultaneously – but a document symptomatic of the desires and new illusions that came into being at the time of its creation. The illusion of equality, something never previously achieved, is promised by the society of which this work is a product and a weapon.

Visual imagery and the art of the Soviet period can be regarded as a powerful force in the hands of the Soviet government. The success of such a force relies upon the dissemination of this non-military weaponry on a massive scale, something offered by the state-owned media and printing houses that reproduced these images by the millions. The main problem facing such high volumes of reproduction was a decrease in quality and the degradation of the image. The propagandist impact of each image became lessened by its obvious similarity to the previous one.

6. Alexander Deineka, Distinguished People of the Soviet State, 1937. Study for a wall painting, oil on canvas, 122 × 203, Perm State Art Gallery, Perm.

Dissemination and repetition were most clearly realised through the concept of the All-Union Exhibition. The rise of the All-Union Exhibition during the 1930s coincided with the toughening up of centralised government in the USSR. Taking place in Moscow, these exhibitions under lined the fact that this large country’s economic and cultural life was governed from one, and only one, capital city. Large turnouts were provided through visits organised by workplaces and educational establishments, as well as through general interest, both in Moscow and across the Soviet Union. This interest derived from a lack of information regarding non-Russian Soviet nationalities; it led to the construction of a one-sided view of the nationality question in the USSR. Works created for these exhibitions had to clearly display qualities such as the utopian belief in intra-national love and mutual support, as well as an overarching gratitude on behalf of all other nations for the facts of Russian history, such as the October Revolution. Works such as Alexander Deineka’s Distinguished People of the Soviet State (1937, fig. 6) depict the official vision of a ‘necessary happiness’ as well as the artist’s interpretation of it. Each republic had to produce a certain number of works, including specimens of architecture and the applied arts. Yet the role of the visual arts cannot be underestimated. Although it may not have been widely admired, Socialist Realist art was disseminated strategically and was therefore well known by the majority of the population. This is due to a great extent to large-scale exhibitions, often obviously imperial in character, as well as to multiple reproductions – in both specialist magazines and the wider press.

7. Baki Urmanche, Girls in a Yurt, 1949. Oil on canvas, 51 × 60, Mardjani Fund, Moscow, © the estate of Baki Urmanche, Kazan, courtesy Ildar Galeyev.

The national pavilions of the All-Union Exhibition of 1939 were at once odes to the wide-reaching Soviet superpower and glorifications of its present-day architecture, as seen in the example of the structure created for the Uzbekistan pavilion.⁸ This architecture was, however, as limited in variety as the range of options given to the represented nations for re-presenting themselves. Replete with grand, neo-classical and pseudo-traditional façades, these buildings seemed to symbolise the gates to the new world. They were devoid of any understanding of that natural human desire for personal identification, something that often entails national identification as well. The All-Union Exhibition could therefore be seen as presenting a new concept for the national style; an intriguing mix of tradition and international historicist classicism, thus creating a pre-postmodern collage. However, this collage lacked irony, one of the main traits of postmodernism, and instead leaned heavily upon ideology.

The role of large-scale exhibitions did not diminish during Stalin’s rule. Throughout the 1950s great emphasis was placed on art exhibitions, with national republics taking their turn as subject matter for segments of time or decades, as they were named. During a certain period of time the art and culture of one or the other republics was shown in Moscow. Consequently, distinctions between the concepts of nation and state were at once emphasised and blurred in three important ways. First, there existed a delineation between various nations within one Soviet state; second, there existed a unity between Soviet nation and Soviet state; and third, there existed a conscious insistence upon the continuous use of the concept of nationalities through the process of cultural representation within a specified state-controlled framework.

The successful construction of a Soviet nation depended upon the careful handling of the nationalities question. On the one hand, national represen...