RAKhN ON TRIAL: THE PURGE OF GUSTAV SHPET
1997; Brill; Volume: 3; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1163/2211730x97x00413
ISSN2211-730X
Autores Tópico(s)Islamic Studies and History
ResumoThe text that follows is an extract from the administrative proceedings initiated against Gustav Shpet during the chistka (purge) of RAKhN in June-July 1930 after he had been released from his duties as Vice- President in April 1929 (Figs.19-20).The witch-hunt against RAKhN was launched in earnest in the fall of 1928 when the Marxist critic Ivan Matsa, a pillar of the Communist Academy (who at the beginning of 1930 became head of the Spatial Arts Section in RAKhN), delivered a fervent lecture condemning contemporary Soviet art history as a stronghold of bourgeois idealism, and if he did not refer to RAKhN by name in his speech, the ensuing debate did.1 The accusation was reinforced in February 1929 when Komsomolskaia pravda initiated a merciless campaign against some of the rakhnovtsy, including Shpet.,2 and the following month a special commission, convoked by Narkompros for inspecting the activities of RAKhN, proceeded to formulate its recommendationsleading to the replacement of Shpet by Mikhail Morozov and of Alexei Sidorov as Academic Secretary by Sergei Amaglobeli.3Actually, although his censure was especially trenchant, Matsa was repeating a criticism that had beleaguered RAKhN since its inception, i.e., that it lacked a strong Communist fraction and was perpetuating a "bourgeois" worldview.However, only a few months after the foundation of RAKhN, Alexander Rodionov emphasized that the Sociological Department had determined that the "Marxist method is the most fruitful method in the field of the social study of art.14Every now and then, Petr Kogan, too, tried to rebuff ideological accusations, asserting, for example, as early as January 1923 that RAKhN counted the following Communists among its personnel: Boris Arvatov, Valerii Briusov, Ekaterina Khersonskaia, Vladimir Friche,
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