SAVITSKIJ, THE ONE WHO SAVED ART
Savitsky, the one who saved art
After a generous breakfast at the yurt camp, we set off towards Nukus again. The journey taken to return to the capital of Karakalpakstan was not the same as the outward journey, but rather a dirt road that passes further west of the Aralkum.
This area is quite desolate, there are just a few groups of camels and dromedaries grazing undisturbed, but it is possible to understand why the Uzbek government has not decided to preserve the portion of the Aral Sea present in its territory:
- The salt from the disappeared lake is recovered and used in a large chemical industry (which we saw in the distance) to produce soda (sodium hydroxide), a chemical reagent used in various ways;
- Important natural gas deposits have been discovered on the old lakebed; for this reason, throughout the area, there are extraction towers and construction sites busy laying gas pipelines, as well as a gigantic, very futuristic chemical plant that converts natural gas into plastic materials (of the JV Uz-Kor Gas Chemical LLC, designed and built by the South Koreans).
The next day, before starting the classic tour, we visited what is called “The Louvre of the desert”.
Historical preamble
Russian art also had its avant-garde period, which began at the end of the nineteenth century in the Tsarist era thanks to the intense economic, social and cultural exchange with the rest of Europe.
Russian painters were free to paint and start art schools where they taught their students the expressive techniques of the moment, in a political context of respect and tolerance.
In 1917 the October Revolution occurred, which led to the establishment of communism and the birth of the Soviet Union; the "victory of the proletariat over monarchy and capitalism" invariably led to the interruption of artistic exchanges with other European capitalist states.
The advent of Stalin imposed a totalitarian regime, with total control of citizens by the state.
The new Stalinist bureaucracy denied art any research autonomy, reducing it to an instrument of political propaganda and cultural dissemination. The art of the Revolution is followed by an art of the State which in fact is not art, but a flat and emphatic illustration of obligatory themes.
Freedom of expression in all its forms, including the artistic one, was prohibited, and those who transgressed risked, in addition to the seizure and destruction of the work, being accused, judged and finally deported to the Gulag.
During Stalin's great purges many suffered this sad fate.
The Savitskij museum
In the 1950s, the then thirty-five-year-old Igor Savitsky took part in an archaeological-ethnographic expedition which aimed to search for artefacts and antiquities in Khwarezmia, a flat region located along the final stretch of the Amu Darya.
Savitsky later moved permanently to Nukus, where he collected so many objects from Karakalpakstan that he convinced the authorities to establish a state museum in the capital and to appoint him curator.
Here, as curator of the museum, he became fully aware of his "mission", namely to recover and preserve Russian avant-garde works, banned by the regime because they were judged to be "degenerate art forms".
Far from the Moscow authorities, Savitsky hid around 10,000 paintings, prints and illustrations in the museum's warehouses, which only came to light after his death (in 1984), thanks to Perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The visit to the museum is an unmissable stop, and takes up about half a day. We strongly recommend being accompanied by a guide who speaks English, or Russian if you have someone like our Oybek, capable of understanding Russian and translating it directly into Italian!
The beauty of the objects and paintings on display is admirable, and very often it will happen to focus on the works of painters who were purged by Stalin.
Nikolaev was arrested for his sexuality, Kurzin was imprisoned and exiled for anti-Soviet propaganda, Solokov was buried in a labor camp. Lysenko was arrested and confined to an asylum for much of his life because of his art.
Wikipedia
Savitsky, the one who saved art
Freedom to create, freedom to think, freedom from conditioning. Its revolutionary potential lies in this attitude: and it is no coincidence that authoritarian regimes look at artists with suspicion and monitor them with spasmodic attention, spying on them, censoring them, even incarcerating them. Dictatorships try in every way to promote a state art and culture, which are nothing more than a fictitious regime art and culture, which rewards the servility of official singers and punishes and represses authentic artists.
Savitsky knew these concepts expressed by Sergio Mattarella, president of our Republic; for this reason, he recovered and hid the works of these and many other artists, otherwise destined for oblivion and destruction.
That's all! If you like this text or have any question, leave a comment below.
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