DREAM AND EXPERIMENT

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Acknowledgement

The research for this article was made possible by a British Academy grant and an International Research Fellowship provided by Queen’s University Belfast.

Notes

1. Kratz et al., Russische Autoren und Verlage in Berlin nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg; Scandura, “Das ‘Russische Berlin;’” Drews, “Russische Schrifsteller am Scheideweg;” Walravens, “Russische Kunstverlage in Berlin.”

2. Neiss, Presse; Valencia, “The Vision of Zion;” Fuks and Fuks, “Yiddish Publishing Activities;” Alt, “Survey of Literary Contributions.”

3. Neiss, Presse, 1.

4. In the present context, we have used the term “émigré” in the sense of Mark Raeff’s definition, referring to those who refused to accept the new Bolshevik regime established in their homeland after 1917 and formed a society in exile (Raeff, Russia Abroad, 6).

5. As the art director of Milgroym Rachel Wischnitzer‐Bernstein recalled, “the production of the first issue of the magazines was in the hands of Alexander Kogan, the publisher of Jar Ptitza (Firebird), a Russian art magazine. The format and general appearance of our journals showed the influence of Jar Ptitza.” Wischnitzer, “From My Archives [a],” 168. Bezalel Narkiss, who was well acquainted with Rachel Wischnitzer‐Bernstein, also confirms the influence of Zhar Ptitsa on the layout of Milgroym/Rimon (Narkiss, “Rachel Wischnitzer,” 18.

6. For a brief observation of Zhar Ptitsa’s content see Trubilina, “Zhar Ptitsa.”

7. Ginzburg and Stassoff, L’Ornement Hébreu. Katharina S. Feil mentioned the publications of David Kaufmann, a prominent Hungarian historian of Jewish art and culture, on medieval Jewish manuscript illumination as the source of Milgroym’s inspiration from Jewish illuminated manuscripts (Feil, “Art under Siege,” 177–178). However, the pioneering research carried out by both David Ginzburg and the leading Russian art historian Vladimir Stassoff within the famous St Petersburg collection of medieval Jewish manuscripts represented an earlier source for the Berlin work of Rachel and Mark Wischnitzer, who had been closely attached to both Ginzburg’s St Petersburg‐based Institute for Oriental Studies and the St Petersburg Judaica circle during the 1910s (Wischnitzer, From Dura, 14–16. See also Narkiss, Illuminations from Hebrew Bibles; Rainer, “Awakening of Jewish National Art”.)

8. Kantsedikas and Sergeeva, Albom evreyskoi khudozestvennoi stariny Semena An‐skogo.

9. Kazovsky, Khudozhniki Vitebska; Amishai‐Maisels, “The Emancipation.”

10. Fleishman, “Gorki i zhurnalny proekt A.E. Kogana.”

11. Rossiiskaia Gosudarstvennaia Biblioteka. Otdel Literatury Russkogo Zarubezhia: Nezabitye Mogily. Rossiiskoe Zarubezhe: Nekrologi 1917–1997 v shesti tomakh, sostavlen V.N. Chuvakov, tom 3 [I‐K], (Moscow, 2001), 353.

12. Levitan, “Russkie izdatelstva v 20‐kh g.g. v Berline,” 449.

13. Hinrichs, Verbannte Muse, 69.

14. Field, Nabokov, 142.

15. Urban, Vladimir Nabokov, 142.

16. A bibliographical commentary on all three issues of Veshch was published, together with translations of relevant articles, in both German and English, by Lars Mueller (Baden, Switzerland, 1995).

17. Maguire, “Introduction to Literary Journals,” 1.

18. Andreev, “Vosvrashchenie v zhizni,” 119.

19. Veshch, nos 1/2 (1922): 1.

20. Molok, “Berlinsky zhurnal ‘Veshch’ i ego russkie kritiki.”

21. On the nationalistic orientations in the avant‐garde movements before, during, and after World War I see Cottington, Cubism in the Shadow of War; Paret, German Encounters with Modernism, 133–85; Basner, “My i Zapad.”

22. Lurie, Zhurnal Zhar Ptitsa, 5.

23. “Zum Geleit,” Zhar Ptitsa, no. 1 (1921): 1.

24. “Khronika Izdatel’sva ‘Russkoe Iskusstvo,’” Zhar Ptitsa, no. 1 (1921): 41.

25. The magazine Mir Iskusstva (World of Art) was founded in 1899 in St Petersburg by Alexandre Benois, Leon Bakst, Dmitri Filosofov, and Sergei Diaghilev. They aimed to assail the low artistic standards of the obsolescent Peredvizhniki school and to promote artistic individualism and other principles of Symbolism and Art Nouveau. In contrast to the social presuppositions that the Peredvizhniki had stressed, Mir Iskusstva emphasised aesthetic artistic values, and expressed Russian history and European culture in an Art Nouveau mode. Apart from the founding fathers, active members of the World of Art included Mikhail Dobuzhinsky, Eugene Lansere, and Konstantin Somov. Exhibitions organised by the World of Art attracted many illustrious painters from Russia and abroad, notably Leon Bakst, Mikhail Vroubel, Mikhail Nesterov, and Isaac Levitan. See Sarabianov, Istoriia russkogo iskusstva, 62–119.

26. Peredvizhniki: the Society of Travelling Artists or Exhibitions (Tovarishchestvo peredvyznyh khudozhestvennykh vystavok) of the so‐called Peredvizhniki movement was founded by Ivan Kramskoi as a result of the “uprising of the fourteen” (refusal of the 14 best graduates of the Academy to paint diploma pictures on religious themes). The Peredvizhniki attempted to reform the academic artistic tradition and to create a new realistic art, involving social processes. However, at the beginning of the 20th century the Peredvizhniki turned into a rather orthodox and routine critical realistic group, and new waves of early 20th‐century Russian art, like Mir Iskusstva, emerged in evident or hidden opposition to the Peredvizhniki. See Sarabianov, Istoria russkogo i sovetskogo iskusstva, 201–42; Rogynskaya, Tovarishchestvo peredvyzhnykh khudozestvennyh vystavok.

27. On the concept and programme of the journal Mir Iskusstva, see Shestakov, Iskusstvo i mir v “Mire iskusstva.”

28. Williams’s and some other studies on Russian émigré culture state that Zhar Ptitsa exposed pre‐revolutionary, émigré, and Soviet art side by side (Williams, Culture in Exile, 307–8). This statement needs clarification. Zhar Ptitsa mostly presented artists of the Russian Silver Age (Alexander Benois , Konstantyn Somov, Mikhail Vroubel, Leon Bakst, Isaak Levitan, Boris Grigoriev, Mikhail Larionov, Natalia Gontcharova, Leonid Pasternak, and others). Some of them actively continued their work after the Revolution abroad, e.g. Bakst, Larionov, and Gontcharova, who were artistically shaped before 1917. Zhar Ptitsa referred to their post‐revolutionary works, usually in the context of their pre‐revolutionary activities. Only briefly and occasionally did Zhar Ptitsa consider the works of post‐revolutionary “Soviet” artists (as e.g. in Osborn’s short review on the Russian Art Exhibition in Berlin, “Russkaia Khudozhestvennai vystavka v Berline”), the major events of avant‐garde Russian Soviet art during the early 1920s—Constructivism, Suprematism, and others—being practically ignored.

29. I.e., the linkage of European continuity in Russian art, interrupted by the “critical realism” of the Peredvizhniki.

30. Levinson, “Somov,” 17.

31. Levinson, “Russkoe iskusstvo s Evrope,” 10, 13–14.

32. Evraziistvo (Eurasianism): an original concept of Russian cultural identity which was first outlined in N. S. Trubetskoi’s Evropa i Chelovechestvo, and later on elaborated in Russian émigré literature and the philosophical discussions of the 1920s and1930s. Critically considering the limitations of European and Eastern (Asian) civilisations, the Eurasianists emphasised a unique cultural mission of Russia. The idea of Eurasianism was developed by L. Karsavin, P. Savitsky, G. Florovsky, and other Russian émigré thinkers during the 1920s and 1930s, emphasising the continuation of Russian culture following the 1917 Revolution, and its spiritual mission (Böss, Die Lehre der Eurasier; Tolstoi, “Trubetzkoy i Evraziistvo”;” Ivanov, Evraziiskoe prostranstvo).

33. Tolstoi, “Pered kartinami Sudeikina,” 28.

34. Makovsky, “Vroubel,” 21–26; Isarlov, “M. F. Larionov,” 26–30; Eganbury, “Gontcharova i Larionov,” 39–40.

35. Katzis, Russkaia eskhatologiia i Russkaia literatura.

36. Suprematism (from Latin supremus) was elaborated by Malevich from the 1910s as an abstract artistic strategy aimed at creating a new non‐objective “Suprematist order” that was artistic and universal at the same time. Suprematism was introduced at the “0–10” exhibition (1915) in St Petersburg. Among other works, Malevich presented the famous Black Square on White, conceived during his earlier work on the opera Victory over the Sun. Malevich wrote in The Non‐Objective World, “When, in the year 1913, in my desperate attempt to free art from the ballast of objectivity, I took refuge in the square form and exhibited a picture which consisted of nothing more than a black square on a white field, the critics and, along with them, the public sighed, ‘Everything which we loved is lost. We are in a desert … Before us is nothing but a black square on a white background!’” During the later 1910s, Suprematism became an important avant‐garde trend pursued by O. Rozanova, El Lissitzky, I. Kliun, I. Puni, and other artists. In post‐revolutionary Russian art and architecture it was paralleled by the development of Constructivism; the competition between Suprematism and Constructivism shaped Russian avant‐garde art in the early 1920s (Sarabianov and Shatskih, Kazimir Malevich).

37. Apocalyptic numerologies of the Russian Silver Age regularly introduced “Zero” as a sign‐measure of a new age (Katzis, Russkaia eskhatologiia, 12–34).

38. UNOVIS: Affirmers of New Art. The group was formed as an association of students of Kazimir Malevich at the Vitebsk Art School (1919–21).

39. Lissitzky, Suprematizm zhyznestroitel’stva. See the interpretation of Dukhan, “El Lissitzky, evreyskii styl, avangard.”

40. Tolstoi, “Pered kartinami Sudeikina,” 24–26.

41. Aleksei Tolstoi moved to Berlin in 1921 and joined the Smenovekhovty. (Smena Vekh: volte‐face group gathering around the magazine Nakanune. Smena Vekh in fact moved gradually to an idealistic recognition of the Soviet regime and many of its members decided to return from emigration to the USSR.)

42. Cherny, “Iskusstvo,” 6.

43. Lévinas, “La Réalité et son ombre;” Dukhan, “Ethics of Representation.”

44. Neiss, Presse, 14.

45. Avant‐garde magazine published by Uri‐Zvi Grinberg. Only the last issue (nos 3–4) appeared in Berlin in 1923.

46. Marten‐Finnis and Valencia, Sprachinseln, 79–100.

47. Wolitz, “Between Folk and Freedom.”

48. Wischnitzer, “From My Archives [b],” 7.

49. Feil, “Art under Seige,” 168.

50. It contained poems by two fellow members of the original Kiewer grupe, Leyb Kvitko and Dovid Hofshteyn, as well as Moshe Kulbak and Aaron Kushnirov. All of them, with one exception, were Symbolist in approach. Only Hofshteyn’s “Di lid fun mayn glaykhgilt” is avant‐garde, even in the Grinbergean sense of referring to the motif of the brotherhood of Jesus. See Alt, “Survey of Literary Contributions.”

51. Members included Zelig Kalmanovich, Nokhum Shtif, Volf Latski‐Bertoldi, Dovid Bergelson, Boris Aronson, Issachar Ber Rybak, Leyb Kvitko, and Joseph Tschaikov. It was not by chance that such a group was established in Kiev, since, as early as the beginning of the 20th century, Kiev was one of the centres of Yiddish literature, and after the 1917 February Revolution became a major centre of diverse Yiddish cultural activities. Founded in 1918, the Kultur‐lige functioned for nearly three tumultuous years during the time of revolutionary ferment and civil war in the Ukraine. Not affiliated with any political party, the Kultur‐lige’s general goal was to foster an international movement for Yiddish culture, and it managed to operate on many cultural fronts throughout the Ukraine during a succession of political regimes, establishing schools of music, art, and drama, a publishing house, and a central library, besides producing literary and pedagogical journals. When the Soviet government gained control of the Ukraine in late 1920, it removed from office the non‐Bolshevik members of the Kultur‐lige’s Central Committee and in the winter of 1921 the entire organisation was closed down. Six of its leaders left for Warsaw at that time, intending to continue the cultural and political work they had begun in Kiev, while others moved on to Berlin. See Kazovsky, Artists of the Kultur‐lige, 16.

52. Bechtel, “Milgroym,” 423.

53. Wischnitzer, From Dura, 166.

54. Wischnitzer‐Bernstein, “Modern Art and Our Jewish Generation.”

55. Rajner, “Awakening of Jewish National Art.”

56. Bohm‐Duchen, “Road from Vitebsk,” 60.

57. Narkiss, in Wischnitzer, From Dura, 12–16.

58. Ginzburg and Stassoff, L’Ornement Hébreu.

59. Wischnitzer‐Bernstein, Symbole und Gestalten der Jüdischen Kunst.

60. Wischnitzer‐Bernstein, “Motif of the Porch.”

61. Wischnitzer‐Bernstein, “David and Samson Slaying the Lion.”

62. On the Kultur‐lige’s artistic statement and activities see Kazovsky, Artists of the Kultur‐Lige.

63. Dukhan, “El Lissitzky,” 313–40.

64. The titles of articles in Yiddish will be given in translation only.

65. Wischnitzer‐Bernstein, “Modern Art and Our Jewish Generation.”

66. Berlewi, “Jewish Artists in Russia.”

67. Wischnitzer‐Bernstein, “Motif of the Porch; “David and Samson Slaying the Lion;” “Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts in Munich.”

68. Lissitzky, “Synagogue of Mohilev.”

69. Täubler, “Biblical Stories.”

70. Toeplitz, “Wall Paintings in Synagogues.”

71. Sukenik, “Ancient Synagogues in Palestine.”

72. Inbar, “Lithograph.”

73. Marzynski, “Modern Portrait.”

74. Struck, “The Engraving.”

75. Wischnitzer‐Bernstein, “Max Liebermann;” “Emanuele Glicenstein.”

76. Wischnitzer‐Bernstein, “Modern Art and Our Jewish Generation.”

77. Ibid., 2.

78. Ibid., 6–7.

79. Berlewi, “Jewish Artists in Russia.”

80. Ibid., 16.

81. Ibid., 14.

82. Ibid., 15.

83. Ibid., 16.

84. Marten‐Finnis, Vilna as the Centre, 41–44.

85. Alt, “The Berlin Milgroym Group.”

86. Literarishe monatsshriftn (Vilna) 1 (1908), cols 5–10, cited in: Alt, “Ambivalence toward Modernism.”