Celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Palekh lacquer miniature craft in 1974

Lavrov Dmitrii Evgen'evich ORCID: 0000-0002-2607-7220 PhD in Art History Senior Educator, the department of Museology, Saint Petersburg State University 199034, Russia, g. Saint Petersburg, nab. Universitetskaya, 7-9, aud. 91 agitlak@mail.ru Other publications by this author

The 1970s came at the time of the highest heyday of the Palekh lacquer craft – a period of huge and extremely favorable attention to Palekh from the Soviet government, the intelligentsia and society. The date of December 5, 1924, when the Artel of Ancient Painting was organized by seven Palekh artists, was considered in Soviet art studies to be the starting point of the history of the "new" Palekh art – the art of the Palekh lacquer miniature. In accordance with this date, anniversaries of the art of this art craft were widely celebrated: its tenth anniversary (1935), thirtieth anniversary (1955), fortieth anniversary (1964). The 50th anniversary, which took place in the first half of December 1974, became one of the most prominent holidays of the craft, having a certain impact on its entire further history up to the very end of the Soviet era.

Back in the summer of 1972, the Palekh Organization of the Union of Artists of the RSFSR and the Art Production Workshops of the Palekh Branch of the RSFSR Art Fund (hereinafter referred to as the PCPM) are developing a plan for preparing the 50th anniversary of Soviet Palekh art, with a scientific and creative conference and a large retrospective exhibition in Moscow, Ivanovo and Palekh ^[18]. The All-Russian Committee for the celebration of this anniversary was also created, whose chairman was the famous patron of the Palekh craft, the Minister of Culture of the RSFSR Yuri Serafimovich Melentyev.

Interestingly, at the beginning of 1974, the PCPM declared its goal to fulfill the annual plan for the release and sale of the manufactured art products by December 5 – the date of the foundation of the Palekh lacquer miniature craft ^[1]. The PCPM plan was completed by the last days of November 1974 ^[9] – and this despite the fact that it was increased by 45 thousand rubles compared to the previous year ^[33]. There was also an active practice of concluding independent contracts with Palekh artists to perform works for upcoming exhibitions. To carry out such a selection work, already in the first days of January 1974, the Palekh branch of the Union of Artists of the RSFSR organizes a temporary exhibition committee, which includes recognized masters of lacquer miniatures – A. A. Kotukhina, V. M. Khodov, P. F. Chalunin, B. M. Ermolaev, B. N. Kukuliyev ^[28]. The Exhibition Committee concluded individual contracts with 19 Palekh artists of different generations to perform 25 paid creative works specifically for the upcoming anniversary exhibitions; in addition, the committee also received the right to pay for the counter works of miniaturists, i.e. works performed outside the framework of an individual contract ^[18].

One of the main sources of information about the Palekh craft was the exhibition activity of the State Museum of Palekh Art (hereinafter referred to as the GMI), which was extremely active during this period: in the early 1970s, the museum held up to 15 temporary exhibitions per year – thematic, personal and mobile ^{[13, p. 80]}. The jubilee year was no exception, during which the State Museum of Fine Arts held 14 exhibitions, including a traveling exhibition of Palekh products in the cities of the Ukrainian SSR ^[1], as well as an exhibition of monumental and decorative paintings by Palekh artists, held within the walls of the museum itself ^[20]. The main project of the 1974 GMPI was the retrospective exhibition "50 years of the Soviet Palekh", which opened in December, which will be described in more detail below. In 1974, the GMPI received more than 1,000 excursion groups, including foreign ones ^[21].

The attention to the publication of publications devoted to Palekh art is increasing. On the anniversary of 1974, P. N. Solonin's book "Hello, Palekh" is published ^{[29, p. 5]} and a collection of famous essays by E. F. Vikhrev of the 1920s-1930s, ^{[3, p. 5]}, in a popular form, telling about the formation and development of this art craft, is republished. Books designed by Palekh artists are being published: the Sadko edition with illustrations by B. N. Kukuliev and K. V. Kukulieva ^{[26, p. 5]}, the collection by V. A. Starostin "Diva Epic" with drawings by paleshanin M. I. Shemarov ^{[30, p. 5]}, and many other publications.

Another way to recognize the merits of miniaturists were official awards, and by the early 1970s the practice of awarding Palekh artists to the anniversary of the local craft was quite common: back in 1935, during the celebration of the first, tenth anniversary of the craft, Palekh miniaturists I. P. Vakurov, I. V. Markichev and A.V. Kotukhin were awarded the titles Honored Artists of the RSFSR ^[6]. So, on December 3, 1974.By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, five employees of the PCPM, including the director of workshops A. I. Kovalev, were awarded certificates of honor ^[32]. The most famous, however, case of awarding the Palekh artist during the anniversary celebrations of 1974 was the awarding of the title of People's Artist of the USSR to the Patriarch of the craft Nikolai Mikhailovich Zinoviev (by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of November 11) ^[9] – the highest official title possible for a Soviet artist (N. M. Zinoviev became the first of the artists of the Soviet decorative andapplied arts, who received this award). There were also collective awards: so, back in January 1974, the PCPM was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor ^[1], and in November the same organization was awarded the Red Banner of the Union of Artists of the USSR and awarded first place in the All-Union Socialist Competition ^[10].

Special mention should be made of the support of Palekh tourism provided by the authorities in the year of the 50th anniversary of the local fishery. So, back in January 1974, the Palekh district Department of Public Education ordered all rural schools of the Palekh district to conduct excursions to the GMI for their students ^[35]. Funds are allocated (90,000 rubles) for the improvement of Palekh: the roads and sidewalks of the village were paved, and the facade of the House-Museum of one of the founders of the Palekh craft, the artist I. I. Golikov, was updated ^[23]. In the spring of 1974, the PCPM produces several batches of commemorative badges and puts them on sale to tourists as souvenirs ^[18]. In honor of the anniversary, nicknamed "golden" in the Soviet press, the passenger liner "Palekh" was named ^[25], the PCPM creates the decoration of the bus "Moscow-Palekh" for the route "Golden Ring" ^[7], and the Palekh folk Choir of the local House of Culture prepares a special festive program for artists and guests of the village ^[34]. The topic of Palekh's life was also in the focus of attention of the 1974 graduates of the local Palekh Art School, since most of their graduation papers were devoted to the life of the Paleshans themselves (the work "Students" by G. P. Zhiryakova, the work "Paleshanskaya side" by I. A. Mishurova ^[31]). The anniversary celebrations touched even the sphere of everyday life of the residents of the "village-academy" as far from art as the retail sale of food products: so, in December 1974, the Palekh district Consumer Society orders a batch of wrapping paper with a Palekh ornament, intended for a local department store ^[4].

 In early December 1974, more than a hundred welcome telegrams came to the address of the craft (the Palekh organization of the Union of Artists of the RSFSR and its chairman B. M. Ermolaev), including congratulations from the Minister of Culture of the USSR P. N. Demichev, who called Palekh's art "the pride of socialist culture" ^[3], as well as the famous cosmonaut A. A. Leonova ^[27]. On December 8, 1974, three new memorial plaques were opened in Palekh, perpetuating the memory of the miniaturists-founders of the craft I. P. Vakurov, A. I. Vatagin, D. N. Butorin ^{[13, p. 82]}, as well as the House-Museum of the famous artist, a native of the village, People's Artist of the USSR P. D. Korin (1892-1967), which became one of the departments of the GMPI ^[16].

On December 10, 1974, a retrospective exhibition "50 years of the Soviet Palekh" was opened at the State Museum of Fine Arts, reflecting all the diverse searches of craft artists over the past half century: for example, along with lacquer miniatures, jewelry, porcelain and finish painting, sketches of monumental-decorative and theatrical painting, as well as works in the field of book illustration ^[19]. Along with the masterpieces of the founders of the craft, diploma works of graduates of the local Palekh Art School took part in the exhibition, emphasizing the idea of continuity of generations of local artists. The exhibition, consisting of about 1,500 works collected from 55 museums of the USSR and presented by the names of 212 Palekh artists ^{[36, p. 135]}, in terms of its scale and coverage of the monuments displayed, became the largest exhibition project of the State Museum of Fine Arts of this period. On the same day, a similar, albeit smaller, exhibition opened in the exposition hall of the House of Artists of the city of Ivanov, where more than 250 works of all stages of the existence of the Palekh lacquer craft were presented ^[17].

The celebrations on December 11, 1974 began at 11 a.m. at the building of the State Museum of Fine Arts, where the Palekh delegation of artists met a group of visiting guests from Moscow and the Ivanovo region. The delegation included the chairman of the Board of the Union of Artists of the RSFSR, a representative of the "severe style", the famous artist G. M. Korzhev, sculptor A.M. Kibalnikov, as well as a group of art historians specializing in the study of the Palekh craft.  Having laid flowers according to local tradition at the monument to V. I. Lenin and the bust of I. I. Golikov ^[8] and having got acquainted with the museum exhibition that opened the day before, at 14 o'clock the delegation began a scientific and theoretical conference, which, according to one of the authorities who opened it, Secretary of the Palekh district Committee of the CPSU N. A. Kharchin, was supposed to "make analysis of the development of Palekh art over 50 years" ^[22]. Thus, the conference, held over two days (December 11-12, 1974) in the conference hall of the PCPM, was designed to give a scientific assessment of the achievements of Palekh art over the past half century by local artists, as well as the largest art historians from the State Russian Museum (I. Ya. Boguslavskaya), the State Hermitage Museum (I. N. Ukhanova) and the Academy of Arts of the USSR (M. A. Nekrasov) ^[15].

This was not the first conference dedicated specifically to Soviet lacquer crafts. So, in Palekh, a similar conference (equally representative, consisting of more than 150 participants and organized by the Ministry of Culture of the RSFSR together with the Union of Artists of the RSFSR) was held just 4 years before the "golden" anniversary, in November 1970, and discussed the state and prospects for the development of the art of Palekh miniature. The 1970 conference was remembered for a large number of problematic reports and sharp polemics of its participants (art historians M. A. Ilyin, V. A. Gulyaev, M. A. Nekrasova, V. M. Vasilenko and others), many of whom sharply differed in their vision of the past, present and future of Palekh art ^{[11, p. 51]}, as well as in different ways They referred to such problematic issues of the development of the Soviet Palekh miniature as the gradual loss of utilitarian function, the ratio of tradition and innovation, the growth of planned indicators without taking into account the specifics of the artist's work, as well as the threat of machine toolism ^[14].

It should be noted that the discussions of art historians about the ways of development of the Palekh art of the Soviet period is a separate and extremely complex topic, to which, however, very few scientific studies are devoted ^{[12, p. 104]}. It is only important to emphasize here that the 1974 conference, due to its anniversary nature, was more free from such harsh polemics, and the reports made by art historians and Palekh artists did not touch much on the above-mentioned controversial issues, providing historical excursions more appropriate for the anniversary (report by art critic V. A. Faleeva on the work of the Palekh artist 1930- x. P. D. Bazhenov; A. A. Saltykov's report on the techniques of miniature icon painting of the XVII century.); revealing the problems of teaching the technique of lacquer painting (report of the director of the Palekh Art School V. I. Astakhov) or issues of perspective (art critic I. N. Ukhanova) and composition (art critic I. A. Pronin), which did not cause such sharp disagreements ^[8].

The crown of the anniversary celebrations was December 13 , 1974 . On this day, the celebration took place in Ivanovo, the administrative center of the region in which Palekh is located. In honor of the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Artel of Ancient Painting, a solemn meeting of representatives of the Ivanovo Regional Committee of the CPSU, as well as the creative intelligentsia of the city and Palekh itself - about 400 people in total ^[2] was held in the Ivanovo Palace of Culture of Textile Workers. Finally, on the last day of the anniversary celebrations, December 14, 1974, in the auditorium of the Palekh House of Culture, a group of artists were awarded certificates of honor of the Ivanovo Regional Committee of the CPSU and the executive Committee of the Ivanovo Regional Council of Deputies ^[27].

Thus, the 50th anniversary of the Palekh lacquer craft, organized by the Soviet government and the intelligentsia, objectively contributed to the growth of fame and recognition of this art craft, as well as the prestige of the professions associated with it, and above all, the creative work of the Palekh miniature artist. All possible means were used to popularize and officially recognize this folk art: exhibition and publishing activities, official awards of Palekh artists and the organization of scientific conferences, congratulations to outstanding public figures and direct allocation of funds for festive events. One of the most important consequences of the Palekh jubilee was the famous Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU "On folk art crafts" of December 17, 1974.^[24] Subsequently repeatedly criticized by some Russian art critics for its excessive ideology, this Resolution, in the author's opinion, played a significant positive role, for example, with its recommendations to regularly hold exhibitions and reviews products, as well as to promote folk art more on television, in print and films. So, already in 1975, within the framework of this Resolution, a well-known documentary film "The Gold of Black Lacquers" directed by I. P. Kalinina, whose presenter was the son of the aforementioned founder of the Palekh craft I. I. Golikov, the famous miniaturist N. I. Golikov, who became a People's Artist of the RSFSR in the year 1974, in the jubilee year.