A Personal History of the Civil War in Alexander Valevsky’s Drawings

Abstract

The analysis of graphic works by the amateur artist A. N. Valevsky (1896–1938) from the collection of the Ulyanovsk Regional Art Museum makes it possible to get a subjective view of the events of the Civil War in Russia. An officer of Kolchak’s army and later a commander of the Red Army, in his drawings, Valevsky recorded not only the everyday realities of the era but also his own experiences and feelings. The famous Soviet painters of the 1920s‑1930s (M. B. Grekov, A. A. Deineka, K. S. Petrov-Vodkin, B. V. Johanson, etc.) avoided any personal interpretation of the events and independent assessments of the revolutionary cataclysms in their epic paintings dedicated to the Civil War. Such a thing is rare in the works of White émigré artists. On the other hand, amateur artists, for whom the documentation of events happening around and internal experiences was a vital need, more often allowed themselves to interpret the history of the “Russian troubles”. Valevsky created his drawings between 1921 and 1925, after the artist’s return to peaceful life and, thus, they can be perceived as memories of what he had experienced. The manner of his graphic works is diverse; they combine grotesque techniques with an attempt to capture reality, and tragic episodes go hand in hand with romantic and comical. In many compositions, the author includes examples of urban and military folklore, lines from poems, romances, and ditties popular among ordinary people. This technique gives the plots both the “spirit of the times” and metaphoricism important for a work of art – the meaningfulness of images. According to the article, the examination of the material also gives a feeling of the autobiographical nature of the entire graphic cycle.