Ilya Repin. Portrait of the Composer Modest Mussorgsky. 1881

Portrait of the Composer Modest Mussorgsky (Ilya Repin, 1881)

Recently, a “Ukrainian nationalist” made some unfortunate comments regarding Mr Repin in regards to a video I presented on You-Tube. It was sad, truly, for the remarks were not based in fact.

Ilya Repin is considered one of the finest artists in all Russian history, and all standard Russian works reflect this. In fact, in the classic The Icon and the Axe (still in print, and a very valuable resource), the author, James Billington, portrays Mr Repin as the quintessential Russian painter, and rightly so, using the picture above as proof of his talent.

The commenter claimed that Repin lived and worked in the Ukraine. That is not so. “Pentak”, the house of Mr Repin, is now a museum (indeed, as an aside, one of the two graduate art faculties in Russia is named after Mr Repin). It is located near St Petersburg, which is nowhere near the Ukraine.

This is sad because such unsubstantiated commentary hurts their cause, it does not make their point at all. Please, remember that very important word: “substantiate”. If Mr Repin lived in Russia, is honoured in Russia, and bore a Russian family name, well, he must have been Russian! It is unfortunate that some people employ overblown rhetoric instead of stating clear fact.

This sets the record straight, I am certain.