Sergei Vasilkovsky. A Zaporozhe Cossack on the Steppe. no date (1880s-90s?)

A Zaporozhe Cossack on the Steppe (Sergei Vasilkovsky, no date (1880s-90s?))

Kurt Reuber. The Stalingrad Madonna. 1942

The Stalingrad Madonna (Kurt Reuber, 1942)

This work is not Russian, but, it has a Russian tie-in. It was drawn by Dr Kurt Reuber, a Wehrmacht medical officer (and pre-war Lutheran pastor) on the back of a military map as a Christmas decoration in a bomb-proof being used as a military hospital. The following four paragraphs are from the website Feldgrau:

Very many people have heard the tale of the “Stalingrad Madonna” without, perhaps, knowing how she came to exist or who drew her. It happened in the days before Christmas, in the ruins of Stalingrad, on which the enemy’s shells and bombs were constantly bursting. The dug-out belonging to the Senior Medical Officer, Dr Kurt Reuber, was divided into two by a hanging blanket. On one side of it, Dr Reuber tended the wounded and the dying; on the other, in his tiny living and sleeping quarters, he drew a picture for those poor men’s celebration of Christmas, the last Christmas that most of them would ever see. He knew that words no longer meant much to them, but, their eyes could still see. In silence, this picture of the Mother, with her child swathed in a white mantle which yet seems to reveal an inner light, entered into his comrade’s souls. What Kurt Reuber and his comrades underwent is described in his last letter:

“Christmas week has come and gone. It has been a week of watching and waiting, of deliberate resignation and confidence. The days were filled with the noise of battle and there were many wounded to be attended to. I wondered for a long while what I should paint, and, in the end, I decided on a Madonna, or mother and child. I have turned my hole in the frozen mud into a studio. The space is too small for me to be able to see the picture properly, so, I climbed on to a stool and looked down at it from above, to get the perspective right. Everything was repeatedly knocked over, and my pencils vanished into the mud. There is nothing to lean my big picture of the Madonna against, except a sloping, home-made table past which I can just manage to squeeze. There are no proper materials and I have used a Russian map for paper. But, I wish I could tell you how absorbed I have been painting my Madonna and how much it means to me”.

“The picture looks like this… the mother’s head and the child’s lean toward each other and a large cloak enfolds them both. It is intended to symbolise ’security’ and ‘mother love’. I remembered the words of St John: light, life, and love. What more could I add? I wanted to suggest these three things in the homely and common vision of a mother with her child and the security that they represent. When we opened the ‘Christmas Door’, as we used to do on other Christmases (only now it was the wooden door of our dug-out), my comrades stood spellbound and reverent, silent before the picture that hung on the clay wall. A lamp was burning on a board stuck into the clay beneath the picture. Our celebrations in the shelter were dominated by this picture, and it was with full hearts that my comrades read the words: light, life, and love”.

“I spent Christmas evening with the other doctors and the sick. The Commanding Officer had presented the latter with his last bottle of Champagne. We raised our mugs and drank to those we love, but, before we had had a chance to taste the wine, we had to throw ourselves flat on the ground as a stick of bombs fell outside. I seized my doctor’s bag and ran to the scene of the explosions, where there were dead and wounded. My shelter with its lovely Christmas decorations became a dressing station. One of the dying men had been hit in the head and there was nothing more I could do for him. He had been with us at our celebration, and had only that moment left to go on duty, but, before he went, he had said: ‘I’ll finish the carol with first. O du Frohliche!” A few moments later he was dead. There was plenty of hard and sad work to do in our Christmas shelter. It is late now, but, it is Christmas night still. [There is] so much sadness everywhere”.

http://www.feldgrau.com/articles.php?ID=74

The wording on the drawing is “1942 Christmas in the Pocket (literally, ‘Cauldron’), Fortress Stalingrad” on the left, and “Light, Life, Love” on the right. Dr Reuber died whilst in Russian captivity in 1944. His letter and the drawing were sent to his family, and they donated the artwork to the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche (Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church) (a large Evangelical (Lutheran) parish in the centre of the city) on the Kurfürstendamm in Berlin (the war-damaged structure still stands as a memorial to those who died in the conflict). It is there to the present day, and copies were sent to the Anglican Coventry Cathedral in England and a Russian Orthodox parish in Volgograd (the current name for Stalingrad) in Russia as signs of post-war reconciliation between former enemies.

Konstantin Zvezdochetov. Mother and Motherland: Equal in Honour! no date (2000s?)

Mother and Motherland: Equal in Honour! (Konstantin Zvezdochetov, no date (2000s?))

This work is indicitive of the creative synthesis taking part in Russia today. Russians are not merely rejecting Communism, rather, they are taking what was good from the Soviet period and combining it with the best of the Tsarist and Old Russian traditions. In short, it is not merely a slavish imitation of American-style “democracy” (which has disappointed many in the West), but, it is a unique construct suited to the particular history, culture, and weltanshauung of Russia. That is to say, it stands in opposition to many of the accepted verities of “modernity”… thank God for that!

Dmitri Slepushkin. A Molieben Before the Battle. 1994

A Molieben Before the Battle (Dmitri Slepushkin, 1994)

We are back, and I wished to start out with something both stirring and reverent. This, I believe, fills the bill admirably. I read once where someone was doubting the understanding of “illiterate peasants”. However, Orthodoxy is not an intellectual exercise, as so much of heterodoxy is. Indeed, I would say that any one of these simple rankers depicted in this painting had a better grasp of the faith and what it entailed than so many contemporary sorts who are puffed up by their unguided reading. Ye must become as a little child… now, THAT is the Orthodox way!  

Olga Dolgaya. Ilya Muromets and Prince Vladimir. 1998

Ilya Muromets and Prince Vladimir (Olga Dolgaya, 1998).

Pyotr Brazhanov. A Portrait of Admiral St Fyodor Ushakov. 1912

A Portrait of Admiral St Fyodor Ushakov (Pyotr Brazhanov, 1912)

Admiral St Fyodor Ushakov (1744-1817) was one of the most illustrious Russian naval commanders of all time. He was not only a daring fighting sea-dog, he was a competent administrator and a serious Orthodox Christian. The port facilities in Sevastopol and Kherson were originally built by him, and he worked on the establishment of the towns surrounding the naval bases. Admiral Ushakov never lost a battle, but, that is not why he was canonised. He took good care of his officers and sailors, and he ended his life in one of the monasteries of the Church (he never became a monk, but, he lived in a monastery and led a pious lay life).

He was canonised in 2000, and is the patron saint of the navy and of the Dalnaya Aviatsiya (“Long-range Aviation”, the strategic bomber force).

Ivan Eggink. Grand Prince St Vladimir Examines the Faith. undated (first quarter of the 19th century?)

Grand Prince St Vladimir Examines the Faith (Ivan Eggink, undated (first quarter of the 19th century?))

Of course, this depiction is highly stylised, but, it does symbolise the fact that Grand Prince St Vladimir chose Orthodoxy over Roman Catholicism in 988. Do not forget that St Vladimir consciously rejected both Islam and Roman Catholicism… he was not merely ignorant of them. The former he considered too fanatical (for it forbade liquor) and the latter he found confusing (for his emissaries were not impressed with RC liturgy, finding it irreverent). Orthodoxy both he and his ambassadors found “just right” (“We did not know if we were in heaven or on earth”, in regards to the liturgy at Agia Sofia).

Russia is deeply Orthodox to this day… and shall remain so until the Last Trump, I am sure (Am I Orthodox? Well… I’m Russian… does that answer your question?).

Aleksandr Ustinovich. White Guard. undated (1990s?)

White Guard (Aleksandr Ustinovich, undated (1990s?))

The “White Guards” were those who resisted the Reds during the Civil War of 1918-20. All of these objects were connected with the White Army, a subject that is being investigated with great vigour in contemporary Russia. Of course, any talk of such during the Soviet time was strictly verboten, and one could find out what the desert of Kazakhstan or the frozen waste of Norilsk was like first-hand if one was too inquisitive on the matter. Think of an American PC college professor on steroids, that’s what the Reds were like (if all things are equal, when the PC crowd falls, boy-oh-boy, I want to be around for the post-mortem).

In short, Russians are rediscovering their past. This is healthy. This painting is part of that rediscovery.

Yuri Lysov. Moses. 2007

Moses (Yuri Lysov, 2007)

One thing that has always gotten under my skin are those sorts who attempt to “explain away” miracles or who smirkily dismiss them (I am not talking of people outside of the Church, I am talking of overeducated pseudo-intellectuals inside the Church). As for me, I believe that Moses parted the Red Sea. Why not? If you are a believer, you agree that God is the Master of the Universe and that He can suspend its laws (in a greater or lesser way) if He so desires.

As for us being “better informed” than the ancients, that is airy and mendacious nonsense. Those folks may not have known the scientific ins-and-outs, but, they had a good-sense grasp of how the world operated, backed by copious observation and acceptance of legitmate tradition. In short, their mothers didn’t raise any fools! If ancient tradition reports a miracle, I tend to believe it unless there is disproving evidence (no, Alexander Schmemann calling St Basil the Blessed clinically insane without a shred of proof is not disproving evidence, to give an instance).

My God can part the Red Sea and raise the dead! Can yours?

Sergei Prisekin. The Battle of Kulikovo. 1994

The Battle of Kulikovo (Sergei Prisekin, 1994)

The Battle of the Field of Kulikovo is one of the turning points in Russian history. Although it occurred in 1380, the date of its anniversary is still marked with great ceremony today, it is very much alive in the consciousness of the Russian people. Grand Prince St Dmitri Donskoi led the Russian host to victory over the Tatars, and it marked the beginning of the expansion of the Russian state to the east and south. Before departing for the field of battle, St Dmitri received a blessing from St Sergei of Radonezh, who founded one of the most famous Russian monasteries, the St Sergius-Holy Trinity Lavra in Sergeyev Posad, which remains one of the most revered pilgrimage destinations in all of Russia. One of the leading heroes of the battle was Prince Dmitri Bobrok of Volyn, who led the charge of the Volynian vityazi (Russian knights) that broke the Tartar line.