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Stalin as Isis and Ra: Socialist Realism and the Art of Design
Author(s): John E. BowltSource: The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, Vol. 24, Design, Culture, Identity: TheWolfsonian Collection (2002), pp. 34-63Published by: Florida International University Board of Trustees on behalf of TheWolfsonian-FIUStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1504182Accessed: 17-08-2015 20:46 UTC
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John
E. Bowit
Stalin
as
Isis
and Ra:Socialist Realism and
the Art of
Design
John
E.
Bowlt
is
professor
of
Slavic
Studies
at the
University
of
Southern
California,
Los
Angeles,
where he is also director of the Institute of Modern
Russian Culture.
He has lived for extended
periods
in
the Soviet
Union/Russia
and
published
widely
on the
subject
of modern Russian
art. He
guest-edited
issues
five and eleven of The
ournal
of
Decorative
and
Propaganda
Arts
exploring
Russian/Soviet
themes. Bowlt conducted research for this
essay
as a Wolfsonian
Fellow in
1995.
his
essay
focuses
on
the Soviet visual
arts,
especially
the decorative
or
applied
arts,
under
Joseph
Stalin
(1879-1953)
during
the
1930s
and
1940s.'
It is
especially appropriate
that the
topic
receive
attention
now,
since a
substantial
part
of
Stalin's
cultural
output
has been
removed
from
history:
on the
one
hand,
many
of the artifacts
have been
destroyed
or mutilated
and,
on the
other,
what has come down
to
us
in
the
way
of
architecture,
paintings,
ceramics,
textiles,
and
knick-
knacks
-
from
ashtrays
to antimacassars is
today
the
frequent target
of
ridicule or abuse.
True,
the last decade has witnessed a
flurry
of
publications
and
exhibitions
on the
subject
of Soviet Socialist Realism both
in Russia
and in
the
West,
and these have
gone
a
long
way
to
reestablishing
he
subject
as a
legitimate
field of academic
investigation.2 By
and
large,
however,
1. The
transliteration
f
Russiannames modifies he
Library
f
Congresssystem
so that the
Cyrillic
ending
"i + i
kratkoe" f
proper
nameshas been rendered
by "y,"
not "ii"
(e.g., Chukovsky,Gor'ky).
Where
a
variant
pelling
has
long
been established
n
the
West,
e.g., Joseph
Stalin
not
Iosif
Stalin),
this has been retained.
2. On
the Soviet visualarts of the Stalinera
see,
for
example,
he
following monographs:
Vladimir
Paperny,
Kul'turadva
(Ann
Arbor,
Mich.:
Ardis,
1985);
Anders
Aman,
Architecture nd
Ideology
n
EasternEuropeDuring theStalinEra(New York:The ArchitecturalHistoryFoundation,1992);
MatthewCullerne
Bown,
Art UnderStalin
(New
York:Holmes and
Meier,
1991);
Matthew
Cullerne
Bown,
SocialistRealist
Painting
(New
Haven,
Conn.:
Yale
University
Press,
1998);
Igor
Golomstock,
Totalitarian rt
(London:
con,
1990);
Evgeny
Gromov,
Stalin. Vlast'i skusstvo
Moscow:
Respublika,
1991);
LorenR
Graham,
TheGhost
f
the
Executed
ngineer.
echnology
nd
theFall
of
theSoviet
Union
(Cambridge,
Mass.:Harvard
University
Press,
1993);
Hans
Giinther,ed.,
TheCulture
of
the
Stalin
Period
New
York:St. Martin's
Press,
1990);
Hugh
Hudson,
Blueprints
nd Blood.The
Stalinization
of
Soviet
Architecture
Princeton,
N.J.:
Princeton
University
Press,
1994);
James
von
Geldern
and
Richard
Stites,
MassCulture n
Soviet
Russia
(Bloomington,
Ind.:Indiana
University
Press,
1995);
also the exhibition
catalogues:
TatianaNikitinaet
al.,
TheAesthetic
Arsenal:
SocialistRealism Under
Stalin,
New
York,
nstitute or
Contemporary
rt, 1993-1994;
AlessandroDe
Magistris,
d.,
URSS.
Anni
30-50,
catalogue
of
exhibitionat the AccademiaAlbertinadelle
Belle
Arti, Turin,
April-June
1997;
Peter
Moever, ed.,
Tyrannei
des
Schinen.Architektur
es
Stalin-Zeit,
atalogue
of exhibition
at the OsterreichischesMuseum
fur
angewandte
Kunst,
Vienna,
April-July
1994;
Jan
Tabor,ed.,
Kunst und Diktatur.
Architektur,
Bildhauerei
und
Malerei
n
Osterreich, eutschland,
talien
und
derSowjetunion 922-1956, catalogueof exhibitionat the Kunstlerhaus, ienna,March-August
Detail
of
Tapestry
with
1994
(two
volumes);
and
Hubertus
Gassner
t
al.,
Agitatsiia
za
schast'e,
atalogue
of exhibitionat
Portrait
ofStalin,
1936.
the Museum
Fridericianum,Kassel,
and the State RussianMuseum
St.
Petersburg,
1994.
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3/31
r'2
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4?
.'
N
AS
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(
: ?
, /
V
n? /- a
?' 'LT:'I
r
(? c ?
r
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*- '" '' ';
.
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,...,.
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This content downloaded from 83.137.211.198 on Mon, 17 Aug 2015 20:46:14 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
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these endeavors
have
focused on
literature
and the
"high"
arts
of
painting,
sculpture,
and
architecture,
whereas the "minor" arts of
everyday
life have
been
neglected.3
It is often the
prosaic
material culture
-rather
than the
august
portrait
or
the
palace
of
power-
that
expresses
most
vividly
the
sociopolitical
aspirations
of
a
particular regime. Consequently, any attempt
to
forge
a
conceptual
link between the
ideological
structure
of the Soviet
Union and its visual production should take account of all the media as a
synthetic expression
and,
as far as
possible,
afford
equal
attention
to the
decorative as well as to the fine
arts,
however difficult that
may
be.
The
use of decorative arts
for
overtly
propagandistic
and
didactic
purposes
often
obscured,
and still
obscures,
their
aesthetic
qualities.
As with Nazi
realism
and,
to a
lesser
extent,
Italian
Fascist
realism,
there still remains
a
disagreeable
tension between the medium
(which may
be
"beautiful")
and the
message
(which
may
be
"ugly"),
and it is
often
impossible
to
speak
of the former
while
ignoring
the latter. Stalin
and
the
applied
or
decorative arts is an
uneasy
subject,
therefore; because in
seeking
an
aesthetic
justification
for the "Stalin
style"
vis-a-vis the
horrors
of
political
dictatorship,
universal
censorship,
and
physical
oppression,
few
can
suspend
their
beliefs,
prejudices,
and
distaste.
One
way,
however,
in
which this
judgmental
issue
may
be
resolved
and
a
contemporary appraisal
of
Socialist Realism
may
be undertaken
in
a
more
sympathetic
manner is to
approach
the
subject
laterally
rather
than
centrally, metaphorically
rather than
ideologically. By delineating
historical
precedents
that,
rightly
or
wrongly,
are less distasteful
to
the researcher
than
a
portrait
of
Stalin or a
photograph
of the
White
Sea
Canal,
we
may
establish
a more
favorable milieu
for an
evaluation of Socialist Realism.
In
this
way
some
of the
negative
charge
that still
accompanies
the contem-
porary reception
of
the Stalin
style
may
be
defused,
even if
its
function as a
principal
vehicle of
political
persuasion
cannot be
disregarded.
For the
sake
of
simplicity,
the
1930s
and the
1940s
are
being
considered
here as
a
single
time
frame
with an artistic and
ideological
constancy,
cohesion,
and
continuity throughout,
even
though,
of
course,
there
weremodulations
in
artistic
theory
and
practice
before,
during,
and
after
World War II.
On
the other
hand,
this
chronology
of
particular
dates and events should not
proscribe comparison
with other
regimes
and historical
moments,
near
or
far,
that
the art of the
Stalin era
may suggest. Comparison
of
"high"
3. For
a
general
survey
of the Soviet
applied
and
decorative
arts,
see Vladimir
Tolstoi,
Monumental'noe
iskusstvo SSR
Moscow:
Sovetsky
khudozhnik,
1978);
for
specific
ssues
see Karen
Kettering,
"An
Introduction o the
Design
of the Moscow
Metro
in the
Stalin
Period:
The
Happiness
of Life
Underground,"'
DecorativeArts 7
(Spring-Summer
2000):
2-20;
Karen
Kettering,
"Sverdlov
Square
Metro Station: The
Friendship
f the
Peoples'
and the Stalin
Constitution,"
Ibid., 21-47;
JaneFriedman,"SovietMastersof the Skies at the MayakovskyMetroStation,"Ibid., 48-64;
and Isabel
Wunsche,
"Homo Sovieticus:The AthleticMotif
in
the
Design
of the
Dynamo
Metro
Station,"Ibid.,
65-90.
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fig.
1
Varvara
Stepanova,
cover of Ot
Moskvy
kupecheskoi
k
Moskve
sotsialisticheskoi
(From
Merchant
Moscow to
Socialist
Moscow)
(Moscow:
Ogiz-lzogiz,
1932). The Mitchell
Wolfson
Jr.Collection,
The Wolfsonian-
Florida
International
University,
Miami
Beach,
Florida.
Stalin culture
with the
ostensibly
remote
regimes
of
ancient
Egypt,
Louis
XIV,
or Peter the Great
is one
way
of
providing
a looser cultural
context
for discussion
of the Socialist Realist
style.
One
point
of
entry
to this
topic
is the
poem
"May
There
Always
Be
Sunshine,"
one of the most
enticing
ditties of the Stalin
(ruled
1924-1953),
Khrushchev
(ruled 1958-1964),
and Brezhnev
(ruled 1964-1982)
eras.
The
piece
was written in 1928
by
Konstantin
Barannikov,
a
four-year-old
boy;
it then
provided
the
lyrics
for a Soviet
hit
song
of
the 1960s:
May
there
always
be
sunshine,
May
there
always
be
sky,
May
there
always
be
Mama,
May
there
always
be
me.4
The
song
is about
illumination,
fertility,
life
everlasting,
and
the
yearning
for
divine
or
superhuman
intervention
-conditions
that informed
and defined Stalin culture in a very particularway. In Stalin's Russia, solar
energy,
aviation, abundance,
and
eternity
were
concepts
that became
especially
manifest
in both
sociopolitical
aspiration
and
visual and material
culture. As a
lyrical
microcosm,
therefore,
"May
There
Always
Be Sunshine"
can be
regarded
as an
apotheosis
of
and
commentary
on the
spirit
of
Stalin's
Russia. As Soviet life became
more brutal
in the
1930s,
with rural
catastrophes,
famines,
and mass
arrests,
the
fine and
applied
arts became
more
florid,
pictorial subjects
more
abundant,
and
construction
projects
more
grandiose.
There seems to be a diabolical
logic
in these
disparities,
and it is tempting to read the disengagement as the direct result of an
emphatic propaganda
that
replaced complete
information
with
half-truths,
fables,
and illusions.
But this is
only
one
of
many components
that must be
4. For
the Russian
and another
English
translation with the first
and second lines
reversed,
see
Vladimir
Markov and
Merrill
Sparks,
Modern Russian
Poetry
(New
York:
Bobbs-Merrill,
1967),
824-825.
vW
??
7/24/2019 Stalin as Isis and Ra Socialist Realism and the Art of Design
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A collection
of
essays
on
Stalin's transformations
of
nature,
Velikie
sooruzheniia
stalinskoi
epokhi
Great
Constructions
of the Stalin
Epoch),
published
in
Moscow
in
1951,
contains
sections that could
just
as
well
have
been written about
Egypt: "Nastuplenie
na
peski"
(Attacking
the
Sands),
"Pokorenie
pustyni" (Vanquishing
the
Desert),
and
"Bogatye
urozhaia
oroshaemykh
polei"
(The
Rich
Harvests
of the
Irrigated
Fields).35
Posters of the 1930s and 1940s also urged the viewer to "Overcome the
Drought "
(fig.
27). Appropriately
enough,
camels are the beasts of
burden
in
the
Salt Mines in
Central Asia
poster
referenced
earlier
(fig.
4).
The
pharaonic
metaphor
is
enticing,
but in
order to
render it more
credible
the
question
as to
why
Stalin
might
have chosen
to
identify
himself with
the
dynasties
of
Cheops,
Ramses,
or Tutankhamen must
be answered.
First,
many
regarded
-
and still
regard- pharaonic Egypt
as a
highly
successful
society
with advanced
technology,
effective law
and
order,
and
very
efficient
means
of
communication
and
transportation-
a
society
that
Stalin would have wished to emulate. Second, there was the precedentof
Egyptian
culture
in
Russian
culture:
from the
authentically
ancient
sphinxes
at
the
Academy
of Arts Embankment
on the River
Neva in
St.
Petersburg
in the
late
eighteenth
century
to
Aleksandr Pushkin's fictional
Egyptian
Nights
of the
1830s;
from
the
importation
of
Napoleon's
Egyptian
taste
into
early nineteenth-century
Russian architecture and
furnishings
to
the
cult of
Cleopatra
in Russia's
fin-de-siecle
poetry
and
dance;
from
the
Egyptian
motif on a
pre-revolutionary
elevator
to the mummies
displayed
59
prominently
in
the main
exhibition area
of
the
Alexander
III
Museum
in
Moscow (now the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts). This is not to say that
Stalin was
especially
aware
of
Russia's
Egyptomania,
but the
artistic,
literary,
and
decorative sources
were
there,
and
their forceful
presence
helps
to
explain
the continued fascination
with
Egypt
during
the Soviet
period.
This
is
reflected
in the
publication
of
several
important
art historical
surveys,
including
Vladimir
Pavlov's The
Sculptural
Portrait in
Ancient
Egypt
and
Moisei
Ginzburg's
Egypt36-although
the
passion
for
things
Egyptian
also
ran
high
in other
countries,
such
as Great
Britain,
France,
and
Germany, particularly
when
archaeological
discoveries
were made
in the
1920s and 1930s.
The last
line of
"May
There
Always
Be
Sunshine,"
the
song
that unifies
this
essay, "May
there
always
be
me,"
expresses
a
simple
desire that
suggests
the
most solid
bridge
between Soviet
and ancient
Egyptian
culture: the
life
everlasting,
the
immortality
and
superhumanity
to which the
healthy
Soviet
workers,
ample
peasants,
and
smiling
children
bear
testimony
in
the
sunlit
photographs
and
paintings
of the 1930s
and 1940s.
Surely
the most
obvious
symbol
of this
aspiration
is the
Lenin mausoleum
on
Red
Square
35. A. V. Topchievet al., Velikieooruzheniia talinskoi pokhiMoscow:Molodaiagvardiia,1951).
36.
Vladimir
Pavlov,
Skul'pturnyi
ortret
v Drevnem
Egipete
Moscow-Leningrad:
skusstvo,
1937);
Moisei
Ginzburg,
Egipet
Moscow:
Akademiia
rkhitektury,
944).
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28/31
fig.
28
Lenin
ying
in state.
From
t
Arkhitekturaavzoleia
'
'1
Lenina
(The
Architecture
i
of
the Lenin
Mausoleum)
a1
(Moscow:
osudarstvennoe to
izdatel'stvo
rkhitektury
_ad
.
igradostroitel'stva,
1950).
Institute of
Modern
Russian
Culture,
:
Los Angeles.
at the foot of
the
Kremlin
wall,
a
stone's throw from
the
River
Moscow,
and
inspired directly
by the
experience
of
ancient
Egypt (fig.
28).
There
is
evidence
to
suggest
that
Stalin,
who
supervised
the
plans
for
the
granite
mausoleum
and followed
the
mummification
of
Lenin at all
phases,
was
guided
by the
same
arguments
and rituals that
inspired
the
Egyptians
to
create
their
pyramids,
their
sarcophagi,
and their
statuary.
The ancient Egyptians believed in life after death, and tried to preserve
the human
body
as
its
container
and vehicle for
the
journey
of
the
spirit.
Before
they perfected
the
technique
of
mummification,
the
early Egyptians
placed
a
sculptural
likeness of the deceased
within the
tomb,
so
the
effigy
could assimilate the soul
(a
practice
reminiscent
of the
multiplicity
of
statues
to
Lenin after his
death).
Since the
pharaoh
was God and
his
sepulcher
the first abode
of
his
soul,
the structure of the
sepulcher
had to
be durable and well
appointed
-which is
why
the
pyramids
were
con-
structed to withstand time and were
equipped
with the
appurtenances
of
the
deceased
for the
voyage beyond.
The alabaster
sarcophagi,
the texts
and
images (during
the
later
dynasties),
and,
of
course,
the actual
process
of
embalming
were
applied
or
interpreted
in the
entombment
of Lenin.7
Completed
in
October
1930
(corresponding
with the thirteenth anniver-
sary
of the October
Revolution),
the
permanent
mausoleum
betrayed
a
clear debt to
pharaonic
architecture
(both
Aleksei
Shchusev,
its
architect,
and
Ignaty Nivinsky,
its
interior
designer,
were well
versed
in
Egyptian
antiquities).
The
polished
surfaces
of
marble,
granite,
and
porphyry,
the
mummy
of
Lenin under the
plate-glass pyramid
installed on the oxidized
37. For
information
on
the
embalming
of
Lcnin,
see
Ilya Zbarsky
nd
Samuel
Hutchinson,
Lcnin'sEnbalmers
London:
Harvill, 1998).
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29/31
fig. 29
Anastas
Mikoian,
Viacheslav
Molotov,
Stalin,
and
Mikhail
Kalinin
top
the Lenin
Mausoleum,
Red
Square,
watching
gymnastics
display
on 6
July
1935.
From ovetskaiadetvora
(Soviet
Kids) Moscow:
Ogiz-lzogiz,
1936).
Institute
f Modern
Russian
Culture,
Los
Angeles.
bronze
base,
the staircase
leading
to
the room
of
mourning,
the interior
decorated
in
black and
red,
the diffused
lighting,
the
proximity
to the river
of the
capital
-all remind
us
of
the
great
pyramids
of
Saqqara
and Giza.
Why
was Stalin so enthusiastic
about
embalming
Lenin,
in
spite
of the
adamant
protests
of Nadezhda
Krupskaia,
Lenin's
widow?38
Why
did
he undertake the
extraordinary
measure
of
placing
the
body
on a
catafalque
in
a mausoleum
in
order
to observe an eternal
lying-in-state,
just
as
he was
condoning
the
widespread
destruction
of
saints'
relics
in the
monasteries
and churches?
First,
because
a
primary
avenue
of scientific
inquiry
in
the
early
years
of the Soviet
state revolved
around the
quest
for
overcoming
death;
centers such as the
Institute
for
Rejuvenation
in
Moscow conducted
extensive medical research
in
this
field.39The
embalming
of
Lenin,
therefore
(and
of Stalin
later),
held
deep
symbolic
value and
was a
clear,
though
illusory,
reference to
the
triumph
over death.
The
Committee
for the
Embalming
of
Lenin,
directed
by
V.
N.
Vorob'ev
and Boris Zbarsky throughout the late 1920s, concluded:
[The
embalming]
rests
on solid scientific
principles,
which allow
us to
count
on a state
of
preservation
of Vladimir Il'ich's
body
for a
long
time
-several
decades;
and can be
viewed like this
in a closed
glass
casket
as
long
as the
necessary
humidity
and
temperature
conditions
are observed.4
61
?^\
%
:
^
;.ts
I
38.
See
Ibid.,
especially haps.
2
and 3.
39.
The architectKonstantinMel'nikov
was
especially
nterested
n
rejuvenation
nd
immortality.
See S.
FrederickStarr,
Melnikov.
olo
Architect
n a Mass
SocietyPrinceton,N.J.:
Princeton
University
Press,
1978),
especially hap.
10.
40. Boris
Zbarsky,
Mavzolei
Lenina
(Moscow:
OGIZ, 1946),
37.
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30/31
For
Stalin,
there was also
the
appeal
of the ancient
ritual
of the
early
dynasties,
whereby
the
aged
leader
was killed
in order to make
room
for
his
younger
successor. The
"ritual
sacrifice"
of Lenin
countenanced
the
ascension of
Stalin,
so
that
Stalin,
standing atop
the
mausoleum,
now
controlled the
dynasty bequeathed
to him
(fig.
29).
Nikolai Stoiarov's
1950
history
of
the mausoleum reinforces the
message:
The name of
Lenin,
written on the
mausoleum,
sounds as a call to
battle,
an
appeal
or
victory.
Lenin lives with
us,
he leads us.
Stalin
s Lenin
today.41
This,
of
course,
echoes the
maxim
that
for
decades
graced
the
streets and
squares
of the
Soviet Union:
"Lenin
lived,
Lenin
lives,
Lenin will
live."
Once
again,
Stalin's
pharaonic
connections
-the solar
power,
the
water-
works,
and the bid
for
eternity-bring
us back to the
images
of
aridity
and
fluidity.
It
is
tempting
to
forge
a
relationship
between the
impending
drought
of 1933 and
the
imposition
of
Socialist Realism the
following
year-in broader terms, between the human desert of the "Great Terror"
and the false waters of
propaganda,
bringing
a
plenitude
of
ideological
irrigation.
In
the
shifting
sands of Stalin's
Russia,
people
vanished,
the
gulags
crisscrossed
the
Siberian
tundra,
and the
regime
of
secrecy
and
reticence vied with the
uniformity
and silence of a
natural desert.
True,
there were
oases,
real and
metaphorical,
restorative and
invigorating,
such
as
Gor'ky
Park,
genuine
achievements
in
mass
literacy
and
heavy industry,
62
and
enduring
works of literature and
art,
which attracted
unfailing
optimism
with
their technical
virtuosity.
But as
the
Stalin era recedes ever further
into the myth of history, the abiding danger becomes the temptation to see
only
the
oases,
not
the
desert,
and to
delight
in the
mirage
of
Socialist
Realism while
forgetting
the
cruelty
of the
unrelenting
sun.
Stalin's dream of
immortality
did
not
come to
pass,
and
the
great
visions
and
projects
of
his culture
proved
to be
fragile
illusions. The canals did
not
function,
and the
damming
of the rivers and the
irrigation
of the
deserts
brought
ecological
disaster.
The
Palace
of
the Soviets was
never
built,
the Exhibition
of
Economic Achievements continues to
crumble,
and the
question
still
lingers
whether Lenin's
body
will be
buried
and
the mausoleum demolished. The brilliant sun high in the sky has been
eclipsed,
the
gods
cast
down,
nothing
seems to remain from that
grandiose
legacy,
and
the
little
song
"May
There
Always
Be Sunshine"
transposes
into a
lamentation.
But
perhaps
not all is
lost,
for
there
is
still the third
and most
uplifting
line of the
refrain,
"May
there
always
be
Mama."
Just
one
year
before
Stalin's
death,
the
Socialist Realist
Fedor
Reshetnikov
41. Nikolai
Stoiarov,
Arkhitektura
mavzoleiaLenina
(Moscow:
Gosudarstvennoezdatel'stvo
arkhitektury gradostroitel'stva,
950),
86.
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31/31
fig.
30
Fedor
Reshetnikov,
Bad
Grades,
Again ,
oil on
canvas,
102
x
94
cm,
1952.
State Tretiakov
Gallery,
Moscow.
Courtesy
of Galart
Publishing,
Moscow.
Ci;
0:
CL
63
painted
his sentimental Bad
Grades,
Again 42
(fig.
30),
which now
might
read as a
metaphor
for Mother Russia
chiding
little
Joseph:
the school
of
life has treated him
harshly
and his
dreams
are in smithereens. So the
happy
note
on
which to finish this
melancholy essay
about
a
regime
that
proved
to be so mortal is that there's
always
mother: Ra
may
fade,
but
Isis lives on. o
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