Nearly sixty years have passed. December 1, 1962. In the office of either Suslov, or Ilyichev, or the Academy of Arts, knowing Khrushchev’s conservative “popular” views on art, they accused the young Belyutin artists for criticism of Nikita Sergeevich, and their paintings were put on the second floor of the Manege. they were forced to hang. Overnight in the framework of the exhibition “30 Years of the Union of Artists of Moscow” (Moscow branch of the Union of Artists). Eliy Belyutin and Ernst Neizvestny suspected that this was a provocation, but the order came directly from the ideological spheres of the Central Committee, it was impossible to refuse from the Central Committee secretary Leonid Ilyichev. Ilyichev himself understood why this was done – he was a collector of paintings, not quite a typical hobby for a party attendant. The effect was such that the creative intelligentsia trembled for a long time, and very important artists lost their orders and / or went into the catacombs for mismatched painting.
Khrushchev got his hands on the works of Boris Iosifovich Zhutovsky, then 29-year-old “Beans”. There is actually a photo: Zhutovsky stands with a scolding smile, but with a smile, and Nikita Sergeevich angrily explains something to him. From the archive transcript: “Khrushchev: That’s how handsome he is; If he looked like you, I’d say he’s a worthy artist. This is stupidity. Why are you writing this, why are you doing this?!
Zhutovsky: This is my brother’s portrait [работа 1961 года называется «Портрет Тольки», а еще был такой, почти весь в огне, портрет сталевара, «Илья Комаров», а уж «Автопортрет» запомнится Хрущеву на всю жизнь. – А.К.].
Khrushchev: You should lower your pants. what is this brother And aren’t you ashamed? This is stupidity, and he says – this is a brother. Are you a normal physical person? Are you a pederast or a normal person? These are the pederasts in the picture.”
From there the phrase “abstractors and n … sy” entered the people. Khrushchev would return seriously to these issues in a few months. And one more thing that has been repeated over and over: people have fed and watered you with the sweat of your brow, and how do you pay them with this “stain”? If you want, we will give you a beautiful path into the world of passports and capitalism. Years later, when I asked if Boris Iosifovich wanted to leave the country in accordance with the party’s instructions, he replied, “Never. After all the circumstances of my life, I formulated to myself that if a bayonet stuck in my ass, then I should. Well, if this is my home, how am I going to leave here?
After Khrushchev was dressed, Zhutovsky went out to smoke (the action continued, but he wanted to smoke). After him, Serov, the head of the court of the Academy of Arts, and Preobrazhensky from the Union of Artists cheerfully went out into the street. They congratulated each other on their success, ignoring Zhutovsky, who would later be fired for two years. So much so that not only leaders, but also talented young people who can paint, like “The Last Firecracker”, are kicked out of the field of fine arts after this decoration. They really succeeded. But here, in a strange irony of history, it was Ernst Neizvestny and Boris Zhutovsky who made Khrushchev’s tombstone, which was shattered by him.
On December 17 of the same year, the Government Reception House in Lengory met with the intelligentsia. Khrushchev either starts, then opens, then calms down after Yevtushenko, Ehrenburg and even Stepan Shchipachev, who defended the poem “stadium”, quarreled with him – in November 1962, the first evening of the poets was held at the Sports Palace. Luzhniki and poetic meetings have already been held at the Polytechnic University, immortalized by Khutsiev in the “Ilyich Outpost”. Conservative Gribachev (“Cosmopolitanism is one of the Trojan horses of American ideology, and the purpose of such horses is known”) or Serov (the same head of the Academy of Arts: “You are an insignificant minority… Why would you refer to their snobs?
And towards the end, Khrushchev suddenly remembered the artist Zhutkovsky again: “When I came to these artists, so to speak, innovators, a rather decent young man put a picture there, and also called a self-portrait – Zhutkovsky. Excuse me, maybe for some rudeness, I wanted to take two self-portraits and put them side by side and ask me (but there is no time now) to prepare a sheet of cardboard, cut a hole, and if that hole overlaps, in this self-portrait by Zhutkovsky, step away four meters and ask you: What part of the human body is shown here? (joyful animation), yes comrades, 95 percent will be wrong (joyful animation), who will say one person and who will say another, because similarity. (Joyful animation. Laughter.) This is the “picture”, comrades.
Well, when on March 8, 1963, communication with the same intelligentsia took place again in the Sverdlovsk Hall of the Kremlin, Andrei Voznesensky and Vasily Aksenov understood (“You take revenge on us for our father who was shot.” – “My father is alive.” – “How does he live? “) and to the same Unknown. And again: “And who did Zhutovsky portray? Freak! When you look at his self-portrait, you may be afraid.
Zhutovsky would then call it a bill of exchange from the due date, proving that he was a good artist. Fully paid off, soon “Bob” will be 90 years old. And among his work in the series “The Last Men of the Empire” there is a stunning pencil drawing of Nikita Sergeevich. Boris Iosifovich can do wonders with pencils, both black and colored …
The rumors were different. Either Suslov arranged all this to piss off Ilyichev, or vice versa. In any case, the main beneficiaries were the Soviet court painters. Ilyichev was soon exiled as deputy foreign minister under Brezhnev. He will then transfer his collection of paintings (or part of it) to the Krasnodar Museum, where Kramskoy, Aivazovsky, Polenov and Savrasov are located – how can an official, even a high-ranking person collect all this?
In 1971, Zhutovsky, with the support of Khrushchev’s son Sergei, helped Neizvestny work on a black and white tombstone and the head of the first secretary. They covered the head with some kind of secret varnish, still it did not help “aging”. And the black and white idea worked, although Nikita Sergeevich is a negative character these days – it shook the foundations.
Nods and millions are still grateful for the real issue, de-Stalinization. And so, of course, Khrushchev swayed from side to side – with the biography he developed, the views he held, the tastes formed (at the Reception that same December) he was a man of his time. House: “I don’t mean to offend blacks, but I think that music is still black – jazz … Why adopt jazz music? They’re going to say it’s a novelty. So how do you call it? is it dance – whistle or twist?”).
In the same 1962 – execution in Novocherkassk. And at the same time – after Alexander Tvardovsky fell out with “Ivan Denisovich” – the publication of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in which Khrushchev gave examples of unlucky artists, poets and writers, because the working man was shown correctly. In March 1963, he even forced the future exile and Nobel laureate to appear in public to stand up and applaud.
In the same 1962 – December 17, he would say about the Caribbean crisis: “The struggle does not tolerate concessions. There is no compromise in the struggle. We also reached a reasonable compromise with Kennedy. It was true. But this cannot be transferred to the practice of life in our society. Therefore, it is not possible to make concessions here.” And at the same time – welcome to Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s publication Pravda of Stalin’s Heirs (“Where else does the wire from this coffin go? / No, Stalin is not dead. He thinks that death is compensable. / We executed him. / But how do you manage Stalin’s heirs? will we eliminate?).
And here is the Manege. “Bleeding in the Moscow Union of Artists,” as they joked at the time. It freezes in culture.
Another version is that Khrushchev responded for the Caribbean crisis, which he saw as a defeat. I wanted to show that the conflict between the two systems is not over, but is heating up. In the same months, however, he complained to Kennedy’s envoy, Norman Cousins, that he did not decide everything himself, and that he had to fight in the Presidency of the Central Committee against the pro-wars and conservatives.
And then, in March 1963, when he once again crushed the intelligentsia, and Voznesensky and Aksenov now did not know what would happen to them (the artists after Manezh were also in no hurry to disperse – they almost awaited arrest), equally harsh criticism at a meeting of the Defense Council. subjected to the army. Malinovsky and Grechko complained: there are not enough soldiers – the generation born in the war is too small, the service life should be increased to four years, and students should be taken away. Khrushchev flared up as well as in a conversation with the intelligentsia, and it suddenly became clear that he perfectly understood the devastating consequences of these proposals for the economy and demography: “Who is serving whom ?! An army for the people or for the army’s people? Have you ever thought about how much benefit young people can bring to the country in this “extra” year? … Wow, well thought out: we spend billions training the experts the country needs – and you offer to take them by the neck and send them for a walk! »
“You do not hold a grudge against me,” said Khrushchev, holding Zhutovsky’s hand in his “little hands,” as the artist recalls, on his birthday in April 1971. I don’t remember how I got to Manege. Someone dragged me … I walk, I walk, and then one of the great artists [вот она – провокация! – А.К.] he tells me: “Stalin is not above them!” I got very angry with him and started yelling at you. Then people took advantage of it.”
That’s the whole explanation. Very true. From an event participant. Sixty years have passed, and not all of Stalin is above us …
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.
Source: Gazeta
Dolores Johnson is a voice of reason at “Social Bites”. As an opinion writer, she provides her readers with insightful commentary on the most pressing issues of the day. With her well-informed perspectives and clear writing style, Dolores helps readers navigate the complex world of news and politics, providing a balanced and thoughtful view on the most important topics of the moment.