E.E. LANCERAY’S CREATIVE WORK IN THE GEORGIAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC (1920—1921)

Abstract

The article covers the beginning of the Georgian period in the life of the famous artist Eugene E. Lanceray (1875—1946), an active participant of the exhibitions “World of Art”, an academician of the Imperial Academy of Arts (1912). His work is divided into three periods: the Petersburg manor one (including his studying in Paris and trips abroad, in Dagestan in 1912 and the Caucasian front of the First World War), the Caucasian one (after moving to Dage­stan in November 1917) and the Moscow one (after the final move to Moscow in 1934). The Caucasian period, full of works of different genres and techniques, remains the least studied, because in the Soviet times, for ideological reasons, many of its episodes were concealed. Thus, almost nothing was known about E.E. Lanceray’s trip to Baku in July 1919, about his work in the Propaganda Department under the Government of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia from September 1919, and his stay in Novorossiysk in January—March 1920. Many documents, letters, portraits were withdrawn from public collections after the repressions of the 1920s—1930s. The article shows the active cultural life of the artist before the Sovietization of Georgia in February 1921, which was not fully covered either in O.I. Podobedova’s basic monograph about the creative work of the master (1961), or in generalizing studies on the history of Georgian arts. The picture is restored taking into account E.E. Lanceray’s diary entries and correspondence, stored in different archives.