Biography of the artist, creative way. Gallery of pictures.
Ivanov Sergey Vasilievich
Ivanov Sergey
(1864 - 1910)
Ivanov Sergey Vasilyevich, Russian painter. He studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1878-82 and 1884-85) under I. M. Pryanishnikov, E. S. Sorokin and in the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts (1882-84). Lived in Moscow. He traveled a lot in Russia, in 1894 he visited Austria, Italy, France. Member of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions (since 1899) and one of the founders of the Union of Russian Artists. He taught at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (since 1900) and the Moscow Stroganov School of Industrial Art (since 1899). In the second half of the 1880s - early 1890s. worked on genre paintings (in which landscape plays an important role), drawings and lithographs dedicated to the tragic fate of Russian peasant settlers and prisoners of tsarist prisons ("At the jail", 1885, "On the road. Death of a settler", 1889, both paintings in Tretyakov Gallery). He took part in the revolutionary events of 1905 and was one of the first among Russian artists to turn to the theme of the revolutionary struggle of the Russian peasantry and the proletariat ("Riot in the Village", 1889, "Shooting", 1905, both paintings in the USSR Museum of the Revolution in Moscow; "Stage" , 1891, the picture has not been preserved; etchings "Execution", "At the wall. Episode of 1905", both - between 1905 and 1910).
Since 1895 I. turned to historical painting. The life of the people and the traits of the national character, their connection with the future destinies of Russia - such is the worldview basis of his historical paintings, either embodying the spontaneous power of the people's movement ("Trouble", 1897, Museum-apartment of I. I. Brodsky, Leningrad), then with great persuasiveness and historical authenticity (sometimes not without elements of social satire) recreating everyday scenes of the past ("Arrival of foreigners in Moscow in the 17th century", 1901, "Tsar. 16th century", 1902, both in the Tretyakov Gallery). In I.'s work, a socio-critical orientation is combined with the search for new compositional and color solutions that emotionally enrich the expressive possibilities of genre and historical painting. He also did illustrations.
Lit.: Granovsky I. N., S. V. Ivanov. Life and creativity, M., 1962.
V. M. Petyushenko
TSB, 1969-1978
______________________________
Sergei Vasilievich Ivanov was born on June 16, 1864 in the city of Ruza, Moscow province, into an impoverished noble family. Childhood impressions of the stay in the homeland of his ancestors on the paternal and maternal lines in the Voronezh and Samara provinces remained in his memory for a long time and were later embodied in his work.
He showed his ability to draw very early, but before entering the MUZHVZ, he had to study at the Moscow Land Survey Institute, where drawing and drawing were taught, at the behest of his parents. The meeting of the future artist with P.P. Sinebatov, who graduated from the Academy of Arts, significantly changed his life. Taking advantage of his advice, he began copying on his own, and then in 1878 he applied to the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, which he first attended as a volunteer. In 1882, after graduating from the scientific course and the figure class of the school, he transferred to the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, but in 1884 he returned to Moscow. The distinctive qualities of Ivanov's character - independence and determination, played an important role when he committed a very courageous act. In 1885, he left the school without even starting his graduation work. Fascinated by life themes, restless, striving for new experiences, he was not embarrassed that without a competitive picture, he would receive only a certificate for the title of art teacher. The idea to make a big trip to different provinces of Russia occupied him much more. The artist wanted to see with his own eyes how the fate of the migrant peasants, moving in huge crowds to the east of Russia, after the reform carried out by P.A. Stolypin, in the hope of finding land and a better life, developed. This great journey through the Moscow, Ryazan, Vladimir, Samara, Orenburg and Voronezh provinces began in the spring of 1885. The result of it was a whole series of drawings, studies and paintings about the life of settlers, among them the most successful in terms of painting was a small canvas "Settler in a Carriage". The painting appeared at a student exhibition in 1886 and was bought by V.D. Polenov, who treated the novice painter with great attention and care. I must say that Ivanov, also throughout his life, experienced a friendly attachment to Polenov. In the 1880s, he was a frequent visitor to his house, participating among other young people in Polenov's drawing evenings. “The Migrant in a Carriage”, which is close to a sketch in its freshness of perception, was painted in the open air, not without the influence of Polenov, a master of plein air painting. The work struck with the vitality of the scene, the bright sunlight, and the skillfully captured image of an old woman sitting in a carriage. A little later, other sketches and finished works appeared, among them: “Settlers. Lonely”, “On the road. Death of a migrant. In them, the theme of hopeless peasant life is brought to the extreme degree of social sharpness and sounds as powerful as in the best works of the Wanderers. Painting «On the road. The Death of a Settler" was accepted for the XVII traveling exhibition, held in 1889.
In addition to artistic abilities, Ivanov had a scientific mindset. During his travels, he always produced interesting ethnographic, architectural, everyday sketches and scientific descriptions. In the summer of 1886, in the Samara province, he came across the burial grounds of the Stone Age and became seriously interested in them. Over time, he collected a curious paleontological collection, part of which was donated to V.D. Polenov and placed in the Borok estate. Scientific and artistic interests prompted Ivanov to seriously take up photography. Many photographs taken during travels were then used in the work on historical paintings. The artist was a full member of the Russian Photographic and Geographical Mining Society.
S.V. Ivanov traveled a lot. In the summer of 1888, on his initiative, a trip along the Volga was organized jointly with A.E. Arkhipov, S.A. Vinogradov and E.M. Khruslov. Many drawings and sketches have been preserved from this trip. In August of the same year, Ivanov went on an expedition to the Caucasus, with the aim of visiting little-known areas and reaching the peaks of Greater and Lesser Ararat. In the book of the expedition participants - E.P. Kovalevsky and E.S. Markov "On the mountains of Ararat", published in 1889, numerous drawings by S. Ivanov are placed. In 1896 he ended up in Feodosia, and then traveled around Dagestan. In 1898 he made a trip to the Vyatka province, then proceeded to the Kalmyk and Kirghiz steppes and to Lake Baskunchak. In 1899 and 1901 he was again drawn to the Volga. In 1894, he ended up in Europe, visiting Paris, Vienna, Venice, Milan and Genoa, but the old Russian cities - Rostov, Yaroslavl, Vologda, Zaraysk, which he visited more than once - were dearer to him.
Since 1889, the artist was captured by the theme of prisoners for several years. Having received official permission to visit prisons, Ivanov spends almost all his time in prisons, sketching those who are there. Numerous sketches depicting stern faces and shaved heads tell about this. In 1891, for a month, he visited the Saratov transit prison every day. Then, having moved to Atkarsk, where prisoners were also kept, he settled in a house opposite the prison and paints the paintings “Stage” and “Tatar at Prayer”. The latter depicts a Muslim standing to his full height in a prisoner's robe and skullcap, who is doing his evening prayer.
Even while working on a series of illustrations for the two-volume edition of M.Yu. Lermontov, undertaken by P.P. Konchalovsky in the publishing house of Kushnerev, he continued his “prisoner series”. Of the fifteen illustrations, almost all, in one way or another, are related to this topic. Illustrating the poems: "Desire", "Prisoner", "Neighbour", he did not seek to convey the romantic nature of Lermontov's poetry, but interpreted them literally and reliably, using nature and those sketches that were performed in the Makariev prison.
In 1894, wanting to get new impressions, as well as to renew his art, which, in his opinion, had come to a standstill, S.V. Ivanov and his wife traveled to Europe. The artist intended to spend a whole year in France, living in Paris, but the impressions received from this city and the state of modern Western art deeply disappointed him. He wrote about this trip to the artist A.A. Kiselev: “It’s good now in Russia. Although I've only been here in Paris for a month, I'm beginning to yearn - there is no space. I saw the Salons and other exhibitions, and they did not give me what I expected, out of 3,000 things I found only 100 here, which I can stop at ... the absence of life is striking. In another letter to the same addressee, he sadly states: “There is nothing good here now, and there is no point in coming here to study.” Three months later the Ivanovs returned to Moscow.
However, this trip was not in vain, the heightened feeling of love for the motherland that swept over Europe and modern French painting, no matter how negatively the painter perceived it, was reflected in his work. Since 1895, he began to historical genre, and his manner of writing noticeably liberated. The study of the “History of the Russian State” by N.M. Karamzin also greatly contributed to the passion for history.
The first plot that interested the artist was connected with the history of the Time of Troubles. A large canvas called "Trouble" was painted in 1897, in the ancient city of Zaraysk. In the picture, in expressive poses, a raging crowd appeared, repairing its cruel trial of Grishka Otrepyev. While working on it, the artist sought to recreate the era as accurately as possible, depicting in the work authentic costumes and ancient weapons: shields, sabers, axes, which he previously sketched in the Hermitage Museum. At the Novgorod Bazaar, he managed to acquire several old things, and historical works, which he carefully studied, helped him: “The Tale of Massa and Herkman about the Time of Troubles in Russia” and “Tales of Contemporaries about Dimitri the Pretender”. However, despite the careful execution, this work, as Ivanov expected, was not accepted for any exhibition.
But the next one is “In the forest. In memory of Stephen of Perm and other educators of foreigners”, in which he found a successful compositional form for conveying the deep Christian idea of the enlightenment of pagan tribes, was taken to the Traveling Exhibition of 1899, at the same time he became a full member of the Association of Wanderers.
In the same years, Ivanov worked in parallel on illustrations for the works of A.S. Pushkin, published in 1898-1899 by Kushnerev's publishing house. He was attracted by the opportunity in the story "The Captain's Daughter" and "Songs about the Prophetic Oleg", which he chose to illustrate, to reflect Russian history. The artist was especially interested in the image of Emelyan Pugachev. For him, he painted several portraits, including his "Self-portrait in a hat", called angry. But the best still was the illustration depicting Prince Oleg and the magician.
In 1901, S.V. Ivanov caused great surprise by showing his new creation at the exhibition of 36 - the painting “The Arrival of Foreigners. XVII century”, which P.M. Tretyakov bought right before the opening of the exhibition. It seemed that this canvas, as well as the following - “Tsar. XVI century" was written by another author. Unprecedented compositional freedom and the use of bright, almost local colors made the picture unusual and decorative. Huge fluffy snowdrifts, small log houses, churches painted with great feeling, conveying a feeling of frosty air and patriarchal comfort made it possible to fill the scene from the past with poetry and give it reality. Very expressive figures and framed faces of an old man in a long fur coat with a large bunch of bagels in his hand and a young lady, whom he hurries to take away. The writer and publicist G.A.Machtet, congratulating the artist with this picture, wrote: “How the colossal genius of Viktor Vasnetsov, having plunged into the high native epic, gives us it in images, recreating the ideas of the people, their concepts, their “beauty”, teaching us to understand “ people's soul," - so you, in your picture "Arrival of Guests", recreate our past and distant for us ... I breathed that wild Moscow - I could not take my eyes off this harsh barbarian, leading the stupid, timid Fedora away from the enemy's "eye".
In 1903, Ivanov visited the village of Svistukha, Dmitrovsky district, Moscow province, and was immediately captivated by a quiet, picturesque place on the banks of the Yakhroma River. Here he lived for the last seven years, building a small house and workshop according to his project. Here he painted one of his best paintings, The Family. It is painted on a large canvas, which, of course, indicates the importance that the artist attached to his work. It depicts a line of people marching through the fluffy snow through the whole village with special solemnity and grandeur. The canvas is executed in a free, impasto manner of painting using a bright colorful palette, which is dominated by white, yellow, red and blue tones. It strikes with an optimistic and life-affirming mood. A huge role in revealing the emotional structure of the work was played by the landscape. He has truly become one of the main characters. Nature, as well as sketches of peasants, Ivanov wrote in the winter in the open air, having designed for this purpose a heated workshop specially on a sleigh.
In 1903, S.V. Ivanov took a great part in the creation of the creative association "Union of Russian Artists". To a large extent, it arose due to his organizational qualities and fighting, decisive character. Immediately after the appearance of the "Union", the artist left the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions and exhibited only here until the end of his days. The passionate character of Ivanov, who literally "threw him to the barricades", was noted by all who knew him. During the revolution of 1905, he not only showed sympathy for the rebels, but, like V.A. Serov, created many graphic and pictorial works on this topic, including the painting “Execution”.
An interesting description of S.V. Ivanov, still a student of the school, was given by M.V. Nesterov in his memoirs. He wrote: “He looked like a rebel student, ragged, long legs, swirling head. Hot ardent person, sincere hot hobbies. He always helped speech with his gesture, deliberately passionate. Direct, impeccably honest, and everything about him attracted ... Ivanov, seemingly stern, often showed his youthful enthusiasm and energy, infecting others. He liked to be a horse-breeder in undertakings, but if some enterprise did not succeed, then he became discouraged. Sometimes his comrades laughed at him for it. The rebellious nature of the "hellish arsonist" ... Ardent and hot, he sometimes gave the impression of a sharp, even despotic person, but under this a very deep and soft nature was hidden. This beautiful verbal portrait complements the visual one, made in 1903 by the artist I.E. Braz. From it the gaze of a person is directed with great sorrow and tension, looking into this difficult world.
S.V. Ivanov died suddenly of a heart attack on August 16, 1910 in the village of Svistukha, where he lived quietly for the last years.
An artist of bright talent, Ivanov was born in Ruza, Moscow province, in the family of an official. He studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1878-1882, 1884-1885) under I.M. Pryanishnikov and the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg.
From the very beginning, the direction of his works is quite obvious: the history of Russia in the past and present. The first picture "On the road. The Death of a Settler (1889), which brought fame to the artist, was written in the style of the early works of the Wanderers, but the attitude to what is happening is already different. The death of the breadwinner, the loneliness of an orphaned family - is emphasized by the desert landscape of the scorched steppe. In the picture, the artist actively used the artistic means of composition. Continuing the traditions, Ivanov strove for dramatic art, sensitively conveying the “beating of the human soul”, which was embodied in paintings about the life of peasants (“To the landowner with a request”, 1885) and “prisoner” themes (“Etap”, 1892).
Ivanov's search for new compositional and color solutions - unexpected angles, decorative flat color spots led the artist to participate in the creation of the Union of Russian Artists.
In 1900, the influence of impressionism became more and more noticeable in the work of S. Ivanov. The transmission of the light-air environment highlights the main objects of the compositions. The artist's works are characterized by a concisely pointed interpretation of images.
From the late 1890s, the artist worked mainly on paintings from the Russian past. In the past of Russia, the artist was primarily attracted by sharp dramatic moments, the strength of Russian folk characters (“The Campaign of the Muscovites. XVI century”, 1903), the beauty of ancient life (“Family”, 1910). Evil irony was imbued with Ivanov's works from the life of a guy, boyars, demonstrating the historical roots of such phenomena as dense bourgeoisie, dignitary swagger. In 1902, at the Soyuz 36 exhibition, Ivanov presented the painting Tsar. XVI century". Winter day, a parade cortege moves along the Moscow street, at the head of which gridni (guards) in red caftans solemnly march. On a magnificently decorated horse, in rich clothes, the king rides, fat and clumsy, with a pompous linden raised up. But the Lyuli, buried in the snow in a fit of servile feeling, cannot appreciate the "greatness of the moment." Using the method of "colored composition", the artist brought the image as close as possible to the viewer, as if creating an "effect of presence" inside him. This work is distinguished by a bright color system, expressiveness of silhouette solutions, free painting.
In search of a new pictorial language, Ivanov acted as an innovator of the historical genre: his canvases resembled frozen film frames, captivating the viewer with their dynamic rhythm (“The Arrival of Foreigners in Moscow in the 17th Century”, 1901). The last work of the artist was a cycle about the events of 1905 (“Execution”).
The life of the Russian village was hard. The so-called resettlement issue worried many representatives of advanced Russian culture and art in those years. Even V. G. Perov, the founder of critical realism, did not pass by this topic. Known, for example, his drawing "The Death of a Settler".
The settlers made a painful impression on A.P. Chekhov, who traveled in 1890 on the road to Sakhalin through all of Siberia. Under the influence of conversations with Chekhov, he traveled along the Volga and Kama, to the Urals, and from there to Siberia and N. Teleshov. “Beyond the Urals, I saw the exhausting life of our settlers,” he recalled, “almost fabulous hardships and hardships of the people’s peasant life.”
Ivanov spent a good half of his life traveling around Russia, carefully, with keen interest, getting acquainted with the life of the many-sided working people. In these incessant wanderings, he became acquainted with the life of the settlers. “Many dozens of miles he walked with them in the dust of the roads, in the rain, bad weather and the scorching sun in the steppes,” Ivanov’s friends say, “he spent many nights with them, filling his albums with drawings and notes, many tragic scenes passed before his eyes.”
Powerless to help these people, the artist thought with pain about the immense tragedy of their situation and the deceitfulness of their dreams of "happiness", which they were not destined to find in the conditions of tsarist Russia.
In the late 1880s, Ivanov conceived a large series of paintings that consistently told about the life of the settlers. In the first picture - "Rus' is coming" - the artist wanted to show the beginning of their journey, when people are still cheerful, healthy and full of bright hopes. “Resettlers. Walkers. 1886 .
One of the final pictures of the cycle is “On the road. The Death of a Settler” is the strongest work of the planned series. Other works on this subject, created earlier and later by a number of writers and artists, did not reveal so deeply and at the same time so simply the tragedy of the settlers in all its terrible truth.
"On the road. Death of a migrant. 1889
Steppe incandescent heat. A light haze extinguishes the horizon line. This sun-scorched desert land seems boundless. Here is a lonely immigrant family. Apparently, the last extreme forced her to stop at this bare place, which was not protected by anything from the scorching sun.
The head of the family, the breadwinner, died. What awaits the unfortunate mother and daughter in the future - such a question everyone involuntarily asks himself when looking at the picture. And the answer is clear. It is read in the figure of a mother stretched out on the bare ground. There are no words and no tears for a heartbroken woman.
In mute desperation, she scratches the dry earth with crooked fingers. We read the same answer in the bewildered, blackened, like an extinct coal, face of the girl, in her eyes frozen with horror, in her entire numb, emaciated figure. There is no hope for any help!
But quite recently, life was glimmering in a small transport house. The fire was crackling, a meager dinner was being prepared, the hostess was busy near the fire. The whole family dreamed that somewhere far away, in an unknown, blessed land, a new, happy life would soon begin for her.
Now everything collapsed. The main worker died, obviously, the exhausted horse also fell. The collar and the arc are no longer needed: they are carelessly thrown near the cart. The fire in the hearth went out. An overturned bucket, the bare sticks of an empty tripod, outstretched, like arms, empty shafts in mute anguish - how hopelessly sad and tragic all this is!
Settlers (Return Settlers), 1888
Ivanov consciously sought just such an impression. Like Perov in "Seeing the Dead", he closed the grief with a narrow circle of family, abandoning the figures of sympathetic women who were in the preliminary sketch of the picture. Wanting to further emphasize the doom of the settlers, the artist decided not to include the horse, which was also in the sketch, into the picture..
The power of Ivanov's painting is not limited to the truthful transmission of a particular moment. This work is a typical image of peasant life in post-reform Russia.
Sources.
http://www.russianculture.ru/formp.asp?ID=80&full
http://www.rodon.org/art-080808191839
In the last years of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, Sergei Ivanov turns to acute social problems. In particular, a phenomenon characteristic of the Russian village of the last quarter of the 19th century attracted his attention: in the second half of the 1880s, resettlement to Siberia began.
On the image: “Resettlers. Walkers. 1886.
After the reform of 1861, it became necessary to resolve the land issue. The government saw a way out in the resettlement of landless peasants in this vast sparsely populated region. Only in the last decades of the 19th century, several million peasants left their insignificant allotments, miserable huts and went in search of "fertile lands."
On the image: "Resettler in a Carriage", 1886.
Alone, with their wives and children, in small parties, taking their fragile belongings with them, on foot and in carts, and if they were lucky, then by rail, they rushed, inspired by utopian dreams of "Belovodye" or "White Arapia", towards severe trials and most often severe disappointments. The tragedy of landless peasants who left their original places, from the central provinces to the outskirts of the country - to Siberia and perishing in the hundreds along the way - this is the main idea of Ivanov's cycle of paintings. He captured the scenes of peasant life in deliberately dull, "mournful" in color pictures about immigrants.
Image: On the road. Death of a migrant. 1889.
From the mid-1890s, a new period began in the artist's work, associated with the creation of historical works. Ivanov's historical painting has features that make him related to the art of Surikov and Ryabushkin. The painter understands the state of the excited mass in acute dramatic moments (“Trouble”, 1897, Museum-apartment of I. I. Brodsky); “According to the verdict of the veche”, 1896, private collection), he is attracted by the strength of Russian folk characters and, like Ryabushkin, he finds beauty in the phenomena of folk life, affirms the understanding of this beauty by a Russian person. Ivanov sensitively captures the picturesque search for time; his works of these years acquire a special coloristic sonority.
On the image: "Time of Troubles" (Tushino camp)
Ivanov acted as an innovator of the historical genre, composing episodes of the Russian Middle Ages - in the spirit of modern style - almost like film shots, captivating the viewer with their dynamic rhythm, "presence effect" (Arrival of foreigners in Moscow of the 17th century, 1901); "Tsar. XVI century "(1902), Campaign of the Muscovites. XVI century, 1903). In them, the artist took a fresh look at the historical past of the motherland, depicting not the heroic moments of events, but scenes of everyday life from ancient Russian life. Some images are written with a touch of irony, grotesque. In 1908-13 he completed 18 works for the project "Paintings on Russian History".
On the image: St. George's Day. 1908
On the image: "Campaign of the Army of Moscow Rus'", XVI century, painting 1903.
On the image: "Review of service people", no later than 1907
Peculiar features of nervous “proto-expressionism” stood out with particular force in his images of the first Russian revolution, including in the famous painting “Execution” (1905, Krasnaya Presnya Historical and Revolutionary Museum, a branch of the State Central Museum of Contemporary Art), which struck contemporaries with a piercingly desperate sound of protest.
During the armed uprising of 1905 in Moscow, he was a witness and participant - he assisted students wounded in street battles right in the building of Moscow University on Mokhovaya Street. His drawings of gendarmes and Cossacks, who during the uprising lodged in the Manege, near the Kremlin, have survived.
Later, the artist works on the painting “They are coming! Punitive Detachment" (1905-1909, State Tretyakov Gallery).
Pictured: They're coming! Punitive Squad.
Pictured: Family, 1907
On the image: The arrival of the governor
Pictured: German, 1910
Pictured: Village riot, 1889.
In the image: At the prison. 1884
On the image: Arrival of foreigners. XVII century. 1901
On the image: Boyar serfs. 1909
Let's start with the reasons for moving to Siberia. The main reason for resettlement in the post-reform era is economic. The peasants believed that they would live better in Siberia than at home, because in their homeland all suitable land had already been plowed up, the population was growing rapidly (1.7–2% per year) and the amount of land per person was correspondingly decreasing, while in Siberia the supply of suitable for cultivating the land is practically endless. Where rumors of a rich life in Siberia spread among the peasants, there was a desire for resettlement. The champions of the resettlement were the black earth, but at the same time densely populated and very poor Kursk, Voronezh and Tambov provinces. It is interesting that non-chernozem (and especially northern) peasants were inclined to resettlement to a much lesser extent, although they were deprived of the benefits of nature - they preferred to develop various non-agricultural side jobs.
Could it be that the unfortunate characters of the picture have traveled from the Tambov province to Siberia on this small cart? Of course not. Such hardcore ended as early as the 1850s. The railroad reached Tyumen in 1885. Those wishing to move to Siberia went to the nearest station to their place of residence and ordered a freight car. In such a wagon, small (6.4x2.7m) and not insulated, it was just that - in terrible crowding and in the cold - a peasant family with a horse, a cow, a supply of grain (for the first year and sowing) and hay, inventory and household items. The car was moving at a speed of 150-200 km per day, that is, the journey from Tambov took a couple of weeks.
It was necessary to get to Tyumen by the earliest possible time of opening the Irtysh, that is, by the beginning of March, and wait for the ice drift (which could happen either immediately, or in a month and a half). The living conditions for the settlers were Spartan - primitive plank barracks, and for the most unlucky and thatched huts on the shore. Recall that in March it is still cold in Tyumen, on average up to -10.
An ice drift passed, and from Tyumen, down the Irtysh and then up the Ob, a few and expensive steamboats departed (a steamboat is expensive and difficult to build on a river that does not communicate with the rest of the country either by sea or by rail). There was desperately not enough space on the ships, so they dragged behind them a string of primitive deckless barges. The barges, which did not even have a basic shelter from the rain, were so crowded with people that there was nowhere to lie down. And even such barges were not enough for everyone, and to stay until the second voyage to Tyumen would miss the whole summer, in which it was necessary to organize the economy. It is not surprising that the disorganization and seething passions of boarding the ships resembled the evacuation of Denikin's army from Novorossiysk. The bulk of the settlers (and there were 30-40 thousand of them a year), heading for the Altai, got off the steamer in the rapidly growing Barnaul, and if the water was high, then even further, in Biysk. From Tyumen to Tomsk by water 2400 km, to Barnaul - more than 3000. For an old steamer, barely dragging along numerous rifts in the upper reaches of the river, this is one and a half to two months.
In Barnaul (or Biysk) the shortest, overland part of the journey began. Places available for settlement were in the foothills of Altai, 100–200–300 km from the pier. The settlers bought carts made by local artisans at the pier (and those who did not bring a horse with them - also horses) and set off. Of course, the entire peasant inventory and seed supply cannot fit on one cart (in the ideal case, lifting 700-800 kg), but the peasant needs just one cart on the farm. Therefore, those wishing to settle closer to the pier gave their property for storage and made several walkers, and those who went on a longer journey hired at least one more cart.
This circumstance can explain the absence in the migrant's cart in the picture of the voluminous items necessary for the peasant - a plow, a harrow, a supply of grain in bags. Either this property is stored in a warehouse on the pier and is waiting for a second trip, or the peasant hired a cart and sent a teenage son and a cow with it, and he, with his wife, daughter and compact inventory, quickly went to the proposed place of settlement in order to choose a plot for himself.
Where exactly and on what legal grounds was our migrant going to settle? The practices then were different. Some followed the legal path and were assigned to existing rural societies. While the Siberian communities (consisting of the same settlers of previous years) had a large supply of land, they willingly accepted newcomers for nothing, then, after parsing the best lands, for an entrance fee, and then they began to refuse altogether. In some, completely insufficient amount, the treasury prepared and marked out resettlement areas. But the majority of settlers in the described era (1880s) were engaged in self-seizure of state (but completely unnecessary to the treasury) land, boldly founding illegal farms and settlements. The treasury did not understand how to document the current situation, and simply turned a blind eye, without interfering with the peasants and without driving them off the land - until 1917, the lands of the settlers were never registered as property. However, this did not prevent the treasury from taxing illegal peasants on a general basis.
What fate would have awaited the settler if he had not died? Nobody could have predicted this. Approximately one fifth of the settlers in that era did not manage to take root in Siberia. There were not enough hands, there was not enough money and inventory, the first year of management turned out to be cropless, illness or death of family members - all this led to a return to their homeland. At the same time, most often, the house of the returnees was sold, the money was lived - that is, they returned to settle down with their relatives, and this was the social bottom of the village. Note that those who chose the legal path, that is, those who left their rural society, found themselves in the worst position - their fellow villagers could simply not accept them back. Illegals, at least, had the right to return back and receive their allotment. Those who took root in Siberia had a variety of successes - the distribution into rich, middle and poor households did not differ significantly from the center of Russia. Without going into statistical details, we can say that a few really got rich (and those who were doing well in their homeland), while the rest were doing differently, but still better than in their previous lives.
What will happen to the family of the deceased now? To begin with, it should be noted that Russia is not the Wild West, and the dead cannot be simply buried by the road. In Russia, everyone who lives outside their place of registration has a passport, and the wife and children fit into the passport of the head of the family. Consequently, the widow needs to somehow communicate with the authorities, bury her husband with a priest, issue a metrical statement on the burial, and obtain new passports for herself and her children. Given the incredible sparseness and remoteness of officials in Siberia, and the slowness of official postal communications, solving this problem alone can take at least half a year from a poor woman. During this time, all the money will be lived.
Next, the widow will have to assess the situation. If she is young and has one child (or teenage sons who have already reached working age), you can recommend that she remarry on the spot (there have always been a shortage of women in Siberia) - this will be the most prosperous option. If the probability of marriage is low, then the poor woman will have to return to her homeland (and without money, this path will have to be done on foot, asking for alms along the way) and somehow take root with her relatives. A single woman does not have a chance to start a new independent household without an adult man (both in her homeland and in Siberia), the old farm has been sold. So the widow's crying is not in vain. Her husband not only died - all life plans associated with gaining independence and independence were forever broken.
It is noteworthy that the picture depicts by no means the most difficult stage of the migrant's journey. After a winter journey in an unheated freight car, life in a hut on the banks of the frozen Irtysh, two months on the deck of an overcrowded barge, a trip on their own cart across the flowering steppe was more rest and entertainment for the family. Unfortunately, the poor man could not bear the previous hardships and died on the way - like about 10% of children and 4% of adults from those who moved to Siberia in that era. His death can be attributed to the difficult living conditions, discomfort and unsanitary conditions that accompanied the resettlement. But, although it is not obvious at first glance, the picture does not indicate poverty - the property of the deceased, most likely, is not limited to a small number of things in the cart.
The call of the artist was not in vain. Since the opening of the Siberian railway (mid-1890s), the authorities gradually began to take care of the settlers. The famous "Stolypin" cars were built - insulated freight cars with an iron stove, partitions and bunks. At the junction stations, resettlement centers appeared with medical care, baths, laundries and free feeding of small children. The state began marking new plots for the settlers, issuing home improvement loans, and giving tax breaks. 15 years after the picture was written, such terrible scenes became noticeably less - although, of course, the resettlement continued to require hard work and remained a serious test of human strength and courage.
On the map you can trace the path from Tyumen to Barnaul on the water. I remind you that in the 1880s the railway ended in Tyumen.
June 4 1864 , Ruza, Moscow province. - August 3rd 1910 , village Whistle of the Moscow province.
Painter, graphic artist. Illustrator. Genre painter, portrait painter, historical painter.
He studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1878-1882, 1884-1885) under I.M. Pryanishnikova, E.S. Sorokin, at the Academy of Arts (1882-1884). At exhibitions since 1881 (Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions - exhibitor since 1887, member since 1899). Since 1903 - a member and one of the organizers of the Union of Russian Artists. Since 1905 - academician. I.'s work is dedicated to the life and struggle of the peasantry and working people (a series of paintings and drawings "Settlers", including "Death of a Settler", 1889, State Tretyakov Gallery; "Riot in the Village", 1889, "Execution", 1905, both - in the State Tretyakov Gallery Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia). His paintings on the themes of Russian history are marked by realism and nationality ("The Campaign of the Muscovites. XVI century", 1902, State Tretyakov Gallery). New compositional and color schemes of his paintings have enriched the possibilities of historical painting. He painted portraits, worked fruitfully as a draftsman and lithographer. His works are also in the State Russian Museum, the Kiev Museum of Russian Art, the museums of Astrakhan, Ivanov, Kirov, Kostroma, Kursk, Lipetsk, Perm, Petrozavodsk, Ryazan, Saratov, Sevastopol, Smolensk, Syktyvkar, Tula, Ufa, Minsk and others.
