Baltic Worlds article

‘Feast in a Time of Plague’ – first state-sponsored festivities in Petrograd. May Day Celebrations. 1917-1918. Essay by Natalia Murray The twentieth century brought several waves of revolution in Russia, which swept across the nation, each greater and more substantial than the last. When the Bolsheviks came to power in October 1917, their party contained no more than 350, 000 people in a country of 140 million. Turned overnight into the ruling party, the Bolsheviks aimed to use the power of mass propaganda in order to establish their founding mythology and to disseminate their ideas to an overwhelmingly rural and illiterate population. After the 1917 October Revolution the leader of the new Bolshevik State, Vladimir Lenin, proclaimed that culture should support political needs, which effectively meant that all culture was now viewed as propaganda. In his memoirs, the first Minister of Education in Bolshevik Russia, Anatoly Lunacharsky wrote that in 1918 Lenin told him - “…it is necessary to advance art as the means of agitation.” With establishment of the concept of a dictatorship of the proletariat, the need for new proletarian art and culture became essential, and street festivals and performances became corner stones in building the new mythology of the new Russia. The new myths and images aimed to redefine life, reinvent social relations and rejuvenate cults and traditions. The People’s Commissariat for Enlightenment [Narkompross] invited artists to leave their studios and to participate actively in the decoration of streets, squares and public buildings for the celebration of the two anniversaries that served as landmarks in the construction of the Soviet identity: the anniversary of the October Revolution, and May Day. In this article we will look at the very first festivals which followed the February 1917 Revolution – May Day 1917, organised by the Provisional government, and the first Bolshevik festival, May Day 1918. Called The International Day of the Workers Solidarity, 1st May was first announced at the Congress of the II International, which took place on 14-21 June 1889 in Paris. Although already in December 1888 the Congress of American Federation of Labour, which took place in Saint Louis, planned an international manifestation on May 1st. In Russia, the first manifestation on the 1st of May took place in 1897. The demonstrations between 1901 and 1903 united thousands of workers, calling for political struggle. Under the Tsars festivals were a prerogative of the church and the government. Demonstrations were illegal, and May Day processions were often dispersed and outlawed. The only legal processions were funerals, which consequently served as an excuse for political manifestations. May Day was legalised and turned into an Official Festival by the Provisional Government following the February 1917 Revolution. Unlike Lenin and the Bolsheviks, Kerensky and the Provisional Government did not pay much attention to art policy or mass spectacles. The Arts Commission [Komissiia Po Delam Iskusstva] was established on 4th March 1917. It included the renowned author Maxim Gorky and famous World of Art artists Alexandre Benois, Nikolai Roerich, and Mstislav Dobuzhinsky. They focused on the pressing need to save palaces and works of art from the threats of war and revolution. At the same time other artists in Petrograd – from Futurists to traditional Realists (representing no less than 182 artistic movements) formed the All-Arts Union [Soiuz Deiatelei Vsekh Iskusstv]. The Union of artists was called on to help the provisional government to create a special mass festival on the May Day. The Tsar having abdicated, the 1917 May Day was no longer perceived as an excuse for demonstration against the autocracy, and demanded a new celebratory style. The historian James von Geldern remarked that - “Planners felt May Day should celebrate the fresh revolution, and to mark its optimism and unity they suggested a great Social Mystery-Play.” James Von Geldern, Bolshevik Festivals. 1917-1920 (University of California Press, 1993), p. 18. It could have become the first mass street performance in Russia, but in the end a more traditional street procession was chosen. In Petrograd Lev Rudnev Interestingly enough under Stalin, Rudnev became one of the most popular architects and designed Moscow State University in 1949 followed by the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw in 1952-55. – the architect of the Executive Committee of Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers Deputies - was in charge of the city decorations. On 18th May 1917 Rudnev also won the first prize in the competition for the Monument to the Victims of the Revolution on the Field of Mars. His monument was called Ready-made stones (it looked like a pyramid with steps, and it was made of old granite stones left over from the re-building of the Neva embankment). Thousands of people turned out for the 1st May 1917 parade. They carried allegorical banners and posters, which became the main elements of the decorations of Petrograd. These banners witnessed the birth of a popular image, repeated many times in posters and city decorations - the figure of a strong worker in front of an anvil with a ploughing peasant and the rising sun in the background. Later an image of a worker in a Russian shirt, leather apron and boots became one of the most popular symbols used by the Bolsheviks. He was usually depicted with a moustache (since a beard was an attribute of the orthodox peasants), holding a hammer poised to strike an anvil. In these banners the new allegorical language was introduced for the first time. In his book Bolshevik Festivals, 1917-1920 James Von Geldern wrote - “Festivals test a symbol more rigorously than other environments do. An emblem sewn on a shirt or decorating a pamphlet lies in a congenial context that supports and complements its message. Symbols displayed in a public festival must compete for attention, and they must drive home their message through a stew of competing symbols and hostile interpretations. The cultural heritage was particularly formidable during festivals, when it was embodied by the city itself. The language and medium of a festival is the city, its people, streets, and buildings.” James Von Geldern, Bolshevik Festivals. 1917-1920, p. 73. Initially the major source of inspiration for allegorical figures was the neoclassical tradition transmitted by the French Revolution. But if the Bolsheviks still struggled with the ideas of the French Revolution and Paris Commune due to their bourgeois nature, Kerensky’s government adopted them whole-heartedly. They used the Marseillaise as their anthem, and in August 1917 they even suggested “grandiose carnival-spectacle honouring the epoch of the French Revolution to be organized in the Summer Garden to aid Russian prisoners-of-war. . . . A prop city will be built depicting the Paris of that time. Actors will portray the artistic and theatrical bohemia of the late eighteenth century.” Ibid, p. 23. The Provisional Government proposed that Evreinov direct it and Yury Annenkov to make all the stage designs. Although this rather mad idea never materialised, Evreinov and Annenkov worked together on the most spectacular mass spectacles in the 1920s. Their most famous mass spectacle Storming of the Winter Palace was performed on 7 November 1920 in Petrograd. On May Day 1917, the procession in Petrograd included re-enactments of the February Revolution, the 1905 uprising, the tsar’s family and a woman portraying freedom. She stood on Nevsky Prospect in front of the State Duma building dressed in a classical tunic and holding a broken chain in her hands. A banner was created by professional artists for the workers from the famous Putilov Factory, and featured a woman in a white tunic, standing on a globe, holding a palm branch (a Christian symbol of triumph, victory and sacrifice) in one hand and a torch in the other. The slogan proclaimed “Long live the International!” Religious symbols were widely used, including angels and St. George. As Victoria Bonnell observed “the most central image, which provided a ‘cultural frame’ for organizing political narratives under the old regime, was that of St. George.” Victoria E. Bonnell, Iconography of Power. Soviet Political Posters under Lenin and Stalin (University of California Press, 1999), p. 70. During the First World War, the Tsarist Government repeatedly employed the image of St. George for political propaganda. For 1st May 1917 workers from the tannery factory produced a banner with the image of St. George killing the dragon. The dragon was also depicted on the banner painted by an amateur artist, carried by the piping workshop of Izhorskii factory. Here a young woman with broken chains was reaching out for the sun, while the dead dragon, symbolizing the defeated Tsar’s autocracy, was painted along with the crown and sceptre. The slogan on the banner proclaimed - “Long live democratic revolution and the 8-hour working day!” Even though Russian workers and peasants could relate to religious images, they were less likely to be able to “read” neoclassical images. The important literary critic and historian, Viacheslav Polonskii wrote in the 1920s that the prevalence of allegories and symbols was a consequence of the “bourgeois consciousness of those artists who came from the bourgeois class, bringing with them, together with technical skills, an alien approach to the interpretation of agitational lithography.” Quoted in Ibid, p. 74. In 1917-1919 most festival decorations and banners were still painted by professional artists. Thus a famous soviet artist, Alexander Samokhvalov, who in 1917 was a student at the Academy of Arts in Petrograd, wrote about May 1917 - “Revolution demanded slogans, symbols and posters. They were necessary for those who felt that the Socialist Revolution was inevitable. Workers from factories would bring to us at the Academy texts for the slogans and red fabric. We would write their slogans, trying to illustrate them with industrial symbols: anvils, hammers, sickles and so on.” Quoted in Lapshin, V. P., Khudozhestvennaia zhizn’ Moskvy i Petrograda v 1917 godu (Moscow: Sovetskii Khudozhnik, 1983), p. 122. But could professional artists or Academic students create new proletarian art comprehensible to the masses? The leader of the World of Art movement, Alexander Benois, in his article “Art and Street” remarked - “…When high art stayed away from the street, the street still had a vibrant artistic life. But now high art came out onto the street – and everything became rather confusing.” Alexander Benois, Iskusstvo I Ulitsa, in Teatral’naia gazeta, 1917, 11 June, No. 24, p. 8. Apart from the contradiction between the visual language of workers and members of the intelligentsia, the desire of festival planners to celebrate the Revolution in a harmonious style was often frustrated by the cities themselves, particularly by Petrograd - the former imperial capital. Petrograd's ceremonial centre was dominated by the classicism of Tsar’s palaces. For the celebrations of the 1st of May 1917 the first time all the buildings on the Palace Square, including the Winter Palace, were decorated with white drapes with red edgings and revolutionary slogans. As one of the journalists, Mikhail Levidov remarked in his article “On the day of Red Festival” - “These decorations were the only bright spots on the dull yellow background.” Mikhail Levidov, V den’ Krasnogo Prazdnika [On the day of Red Festival], in Novaya Zhizn’, 20 April 1917, No. 2. The idea to decorate the classical facades of the old palaces was developed even further after the October 1917 Revolution. Under the Bolsheviks, avant-garde artists assumed the right to develop art for the newly-formed Communist state, and the commission to decorate Petrograd for May Day 1918 was indeed awarded to Futurists. They were not all Futurists, but from the time when Futurism first emerged in Russia, this concept had quite a wide meaning, and incorporated aesthetics of the “left” art instead of some specific artistic principles. It was the first big state commission after the October Revolution, and it was entrusted to the “left artists” who gathered around IZO Narkompros (Visual Arts Department of the People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment) – Natan Altman, Ivan Puni, Vladimir Baranoff-Rossiné, Konstantin Boguslavskii, Vladimir Lebedev and others. As a statement of their new art, the Futurists covered the facades of most historic buildings in the centre of Petrograd with bright cubist posters with Futurist slogans. These unique city decorations and their reception by hungry, impoverished people, recorded in the media of 1918, became the true expression of the first steps towards new art in Bolshevik Russia. One of the leading artists of the World of Art movement, Mstislav Dobuzhinsky wrote in his article “A bomb or a firecracker: a conversation between two artists”- “…Well, you must admit we have witnessed the birth of a new era: on 1st May we, artists, finally took our revolutionary banners out onto the streets and just look how delightfully the creations of new art adorned the city. At last, we have declared war on the despotism of architectural lines which have imprisoned the artist’s free eye for long enough!” Mstislav Dobuzhinsky, Bomba ili khlopushka: razgovor mezhdu dvumia khudozhnikami, in Novaya Zhizn, 4 May 1918, No. 83. However, most reactions to these ultra-modern city decorations, were not so positive. Thus the newspaper Vechernie Ogni [Evening Lights] presented rather sarcastic description of the May Day decorations of Petrograd: On the façade of the hotel Astoria is a poster depicting a knight on a green horse, striking someone’s light-brown leg with a spear. The slogan says: “Defend Petrograd” [“Zashchitim Petrograd”]. / On the Mariinsky Palace there are three posters: 1) a man and a woman are loading guns, between them are two lonely buds; it is signed: “Build the Red Army” [“Stroite Krasnuiu Armiiu”]; 2) cubes, triangles and rolls of all the colours of the rainbow alternately scattered around. The letters “Fial…” and “ki” are mixed among the cubes [Russian fialki – violets]. Underneath for those who did not understand is written ‘flowers’; 3) the same cubes, triangles and rolls with the words “1 May” [“Pervoe Maia”]. / The General Staff Building was adorned by several mysterious pictures… Participants of the demonstrations especially enjoyed seeing on one of the posters a blacksmith with one right hand and four left hands; his right eye was flying somewhere in the clouds. / By the Alexander Column facing the Konnogvardeiskii Boulevard was a large painted panel showing dancing peasants - a woman and two men - one in a red and other one in a green shirt; it is signed “1st May” [“Pervoe Maia”] . / On the façade of the Winter Palace is a canvas with two figures, shaking hands in the middle of a green field; between them is a tree without any leaves but with two red cones; a sign says: “Power to the Soviets” [“Vlast’ Sovetam”]. Torzhestva 1 maia. Plakati, in Vechernie Ogni, 2 May 1918, No. 35, p. 3. The Soviet Festivals were seen by the Bolsheviks as the most effective tool in agitation and in the education of the proletariat. Essential funds and manpower were diverted to them in the midst of famine and economic disaster. Often on the day of the festival restaurants and cafes offered cheap meals to the starving population. The new state had to explain to the populus its newly-invented founding myth – during the challenging time of economic disaster and Civil war, they allocated special funds to the Festivals, but struggled to develop the visual language understandable to the proletariat. The leading art-critic of 20th century Russia, Nikolay Punin proclaimed in the Futurist newspaper Iskusstvo Kommuni [Art of the Commune] - “To blow up, demolish, wipe off the face of the earth the old artistic forms – that’s the dream of the new artist, the proletarian artist, the new man. […] If you can’t destroy, build stage props, pretend to demolish, but do not decorate. Do not decorate, since nobody needs these decorations. Not just me but everyone who has eyes and some common sense, was sorry to see such a huge amount of fabric, spoilt by often very low quality posters; in our time when we all do not have any trousers or skirts, it is the same as hanging bread on the streets just for fun. […] We did not need these painted cloths – wet, faded and torn; life was not merry in those days.” Nikolay Punin, K itogam oktyabr’skikh torzhestv, in Iskusstvo Kommuni, 7 December 1918, No. 1, p. 2. For the first time in Russia, new Futurist art claimed to be the artistic vanguard, but proved unable to communicate with the proletariat – now the most important class after the Bolshevik revolution – and it soon had to surrender to more self-explanatory realism. Already in 1919 the May Day decorations were pretty self-explanatory - “Everything was clear and easy to understand, there were no mysterious paintings on pieces of fabric on the streets, no caricatures.” Pervoe maia v Petrograde, in Petrogradskaia Pravda, 3 May 1919, No. 96, p. 2. But Futurists or not, the people’s impressions of the festive decorations and spectacles were often so strong that the recollections of even those who witnessed the historical events were overridden by the dramatized theatrical performances. People’s memory can be very selective. It tends to remember joyful and cheerful occasions; the Bolsheviks banked on this, and probably won. 8