Pictures at an exhibition: Russian land in a global world

Abstract

This article examines Russian realist landscape paintings of the Peredvižniki. It demonstrates how in the course of the formation of a national identity during the late nineteenth century, an originally ideology-free space was politically charged and in the course of decades has been incorporated through various measures and media into the collective memory. In this way, the topos of the ‘Russian Landscape’ became lieu de memoire for Russianness (russkost’) that transcends social order (Russian Empire, Soviet Union, Russian Federation). Through identification with supposedly Russian scenery, which knows no regional or national borders, love of the motherland (‘ljubov’ krodine) can be created and strengthened. In their various reproductions, these landscape images developed into a kind of world parallel to the world of everyday experience in the Stalin era. The ideology of Russian landscape painting is now experiencing a new level of appreciation in the West, the effect of which is a shift in focus in their evaluation, from national to universal criteria.