Boris Grigoriev

(1886 - 1939)

Boris Grigoriev

Расея

Russia

St. Petersburg: Iasnyi 1918

340 x 255 mm. 44 pages.

Edition: 750. Copy nr. 606/750

In the pre-Revolutionary Summers of 1916 and 1917, Grigoriev went to the countryside to draw the real life and faces of the farmers. ‘Realistic not up to illusion, but realistic up to repulsiveness’, as the artist put it. In the Winter of 1917-1918, he reworked some of the drawings into paintings, finally creating a cycle of 60 drawings and 9 paintings. This cycle he baptized Raseia, Rusland, the people’s Russia. In February 1918 at the Mir Iskusstva (World of art) exhibition he presented Raseia. It had an immediate impact and before the summer it was published with essays by Shchegolev and Radlov next to prose and a poem by Grigoriev. For supporters as well as adversaries, Raseia became a symbol of the Revolution: ‘a global monument to our time, the monument to Russia crushed by labour and war, Russia of 1917’ as Shchegolev wrote in his essay. The drawings, typical for Grigoriev, gave a face to the hunger, fear and despair of the farming population. The book combines the beauty of Mir Iskusstva publications with a futurist inspired feature: the reproductions are mounted on wallpaper. The cover is also made of wallpaper, and for the title, Grigoriev drew letters in the form of branches and tree-trunks, adding to the rural atmosphere. copy with a dedication by Boris Grigoriev.

References:

Markov 1969, pp. 29-32

Paniatnie knizhnye daty 1986, pp. 239-240

Nürnberg, 1991, p.67

Stommels 1993, pp. 38-42

Mainz 1993, nr. 32

Galeeva 1995, p. 29

Getty 1997, nr. 225

Leizig, 2000, p. 63

Petergof 2001, p. 25

LS 2004, p.86

LS 2005, p. 60