Аннотация: Since what a point, a (separate) civilization begins. A Civilization Essay.
Since what a point, a (separate) civilization begins. A Civilization Essay.
One of the characters of Theodore Dreiser recalled the great impression after watching the paintings of the Russian battle painter Vereshchagin. 'Eugene saw them one Sunday afternoon, and was enthralled by the magnificence of their grasp of the elements of battle; the wonder of color; the truth of character; the dramatic quality; the sense of force and danger and horror and suffering which was somehow around and in and through everything that was shown.' (Theodore Dreiser The "Genius" (1915)).
('Artists, rich men, sweethearts, Quakers, idlers, craftsmen and clergymen - all have gone to see Vereshchagin's exhibition for the second time. And they say, that those somber, resplendent, crude, livid, yellow canvases, painted with milk, painted with blood , stand out huge and radiant from among the mild and discreet tapestries ... Like a curtain drawn aside ... "Marty Jose. Exhibition of Paintings by the Russian Vereshchagin [In New York in 1889].)
Vereshchagin's paintings are not very convenient for modern official ideological designers who are active in Russia and are trying to invent something.
Yet these paintings are available - with a certain perseverance - to a wide range of people. ("Список картин Василия Верещагина" ["List of Vasily Vereshchagin's paintings"] - Wikipedia (rus)).
The Russian Empire was expanding to the East - towards the Pacific Ocean. Vereshchagin's paintings reflected the impressions of a representative of European (Western) civilization during this movement.
Now we have the opportunity (suddenly) to learn that Russia is a separate civilization. 'MOSCOW, May 17 [2020]. / TASS /. Russia is not just a country, it is really a separate civilization ...' the head of state noted '(https://nauka.tass.ru/nauka/8493647) [unofficial translation]. It is pleasant, of course, in 2020 congratulate yourself on such a civilizational discovery ...
Marietta Shaginyan, describing the life of some of the ancestors of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, was happy to give verbal pictures of the life of semi-medieval [semi-Middle Ages] city of Astrakhan, in the 19th century located on the border between the Western and Eastern worlds. Maybe Astrakhan of the second half of the 19th century is a prototype of a certain 'separate Russial civilization'? (Vasily Vereshchagin. "Beggars in Samarkand" .1870 [Василий Верещагин. 'Нищие в Самарканде'.1870]).
About the partition by Russia, Prussia and Austria of the Rzeczpospolita (Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) and about the huge mass of privileged inhabitants of this state, about people, who in an instant became the intelligentsia of the huge peasant country of Russia in 1775, about people, who ensured the development of Russia in the 19th century and the Russia's achievements of world level in the 20th century (in many spheres) we will not talk in detail now.
For those, who are thinking about the nature of Russian civilization, there are both as the example of the Rzeczpospolita (Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) and of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, so the example of Astrakhan in the second half of the 19th century, of the town, located between the Middle Ages and a modern society.
And for the summarising reflection, there are paintings by Vasily Vereshchagin.
So it's not so difficult to figure out what this a 'separate civilization' is.
May 18, 2020 11:05
Translation from Russian into English: May 18, 2020 13:25.
Владимир Владимирович Залесский 'С чего начинается (отдельная) цивилизация. Цивилизационный очерк'.