Exhibition “Moskvichka. Women of the Soviet capital of the 1920-1930s” opened at the Museum of Moscow on April 24. You can see the changing images of Soviet girls until August 25 this year. A correspondent for the Information Center of the Moscow Government visited the exhibition and talked with art historian, one of the curators of the event, Nadezhda Plungyan, and General Director of the Museum Association “Museum of Moscow” Anna Trapkova.
The exhibition will show how the life and image of a city woman changed in the first decades of Soviet power, through the prism of artistic works of the first half of the 20th century. Based on Nadezhda Plungyan’s research “The Birth of a Soviet Woman. Worker, peasant woman, pilot, “former” and others in the art of 1917-1939,” the exhibition takes the next step in understanding the fantastic revolution that occurred with women and their social role after the October Socialist Revolution of 1917.
“This is not the first time we have explored the history of Moscow through artistic language. But this is probably the first time we are talking so straightforwardly about the image of a woman. And this is the first time for our museum that we are organizing an exhibition with such wide regional representation. More than 25 museums from all over the country, from Perm to Petrozavodsk, and about 10 important private collections take part in the exhibition,” said Anna Trapkova.
The exhibition is a collaboration between Nadezhda Plungyan and textile design historian and art critic Ksenia Guseva. The main idea of the “duet” was a new coverage of the great history of art from the point of view of the history of painting and from the point of view of the history of textiles.
“When thinking about this exhibition, we decided to do a collaboration in which our research would intertwine and shed new light on the larger history of art from these two different angles. We show the image, history and evolution of a woman. She was both a revolutionary and a shock worker. Very new, modernist images,” noted Nadezhda Plungyan.
The exhibition also talks about the connection between art and production, so textiles became another important topic. Visitors will see the history of individual artists who worked in textiles, such as the sister of the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, the textile artist Lyudmila Mayakovskaya and the artist Varvara Stepanova, who was the wife of the photographer Alexander Rodchenko.
Textiles are a cross-cutting theme of the exhibition. According to the curator, it is no less important than the theme of painting. The same worker to whom the Soviet magazine “Rabotnitsa” was dedicated was a textile worker.
Labyrinth of periods
It took approximately six months to create the exhibition. It was designed as if visitors were walking through low-rise Moscow in the 1920s and 1930s. The walls on which the works of art hang are low – almost at the level of buildings of those years. There were no skyscrapers, high-rise buildings or “cloud cutters” yet. According to Nadezhda Plungyan, this creates an intimate space.
The exhibition itself consists of nine halls connected by a kind of labyrinth. Visitors first enter the first hall, and then begin to move from one to another, “walking” through different historical periods.
“The exhibition consists of labyrinths. I wanted to make the route so strange that it would feel like you were in another time. This is how the 30s were structured, that first you had the NEP, and then industrialization. And all this is not connected. There is still an idea that the 30s and 40s are in no way connected. These are two completely different worlds,” the curator emphasized.
New hall – new stage
I – Woman and revolution. The hall will show the main female image of the revolutionary capital – a strong-willed weaver girl with a banner in her hands, in simple shoes, a factory robe and a red headscarf. Her image was on the cover of the leading Soviet magazine Rabotnitsa.
II – Heroine of the NEP. The new economic policy turned Moscow into a whirlpool of nightlife and a “melting pot” of old and new way of life. Due to the “link between city and countryside,” new types of women appeared in the capital. For example, the type of a lively, fearless and independent girl blossomed.
III – Life of a working woman. The course towards industrialization gave rise to the emergence of a new image – the working woman. She was full of optimism, knew all the entrances and exits in the city, skied, squeezed into a tram, spoke at meetings and in workers’ clubs, and led amateur performances.
IV – Artist and muse. Thanks to Soviet equality, women gained wide access to education. Thus, VKHUTEMAS was preparing a completely new type of ambitious single artist. Some designed workers’ clubs, created mosaics and frescoes, others traveled around the country and painted factories and collective farms under construction.
V – Transformation into a monument. The paintings collected in the hall show the transition from one stage to another – to the second five-year plan (1933-1937). At that time, metro construction was underway in the city, the main streets were widened and straightened, the old center was demolished to make way for new highways. The image of a Muscovite has lost its psychologism and has become an element of a plastic ensemble.
VI – Drummer. In the mid-1930s, women transformed into a new person. A shock worker was called an “improved” worker. She greatly exceeded the plan and was a kind of “superwoman.” At first a double load fell on her shoulders, and then a triple one. The hall contains a variety of images of the “superwoman”: both everyday and heroic. Visitors can see a wall dedicated to metro construction projects.
VII – Life has become better. This hall corresponds to the time of party purges. City life was then accompanied by vigilance, anxiety and at the same time serenity. The woman no longer became an equal comrade, but an emblem of beauty and youth, ready to become a mother.
VIII – Wives of Engineers. The hall is dedicated to the movement of “wives of engineering and technical workers” (E&T). Its members had the image of party wives and mothers, engaged only in charity. They were devoid of political or social urgency. The wives were not engineers or specialists; they did not claim a leading position in politics, remaining the “shadow” of their responsible husbands.
IX – Behind the scenes. The last room will show reflections on women who, for various reasons, found themselves behind the scenes of social theater, for example, portraits of famous figures of the Soviet or pre-revolutionary intelligentsia who left the stage in the 1930s as a result of repression or changes in the political background.
Who is a Soviet Muscovite?
A Soviet Muscovite is, first of all, an active woman. She is always busy with something, always in charge of something. At the same time, in the 20-30s of the last century, the image of a woman changed every five years or even three years, she acquired a new character, noted Nadezhda Plungyan.
“There is no universal image of a Soviet woman. She can be very fragile, she can be very monumental, like, for example, a pilot or a Stakhanovite. But the most important thing is that she is always busy with something. She takes the helm into her own hands and doesn’t let go,” the curator emphasized.
A Muscovite is more of a collective image. She was portrayed as a movie heroine, a poster heroine. It represents the center of the state. The historical events that Moscow witnesses leave their mark on the fate of this woman and change her dramatically.
“Moscow is a center because it is still a centralized society. A Leningrad woman, for example, will have a completely different character. It will be more lyrical. It will be more connected with the pre-revolutionary world. In Moscow, history led very strongly, and you can see how the fate of these women changed dramatically,” said the art critic.
Soviet fashion
The theme of fashion can be seen in all rooms, as it is closely related to textiles. Visitors will be able to see the costumes worn by fashionistas of those years. Many of the artists whose work is presented at the exhibition also modeled costumes – theatrical, for cinema, and for everyday use. For example, Varvara Stepanova started the constructivist fashion in the Soviet Union.
At first, fashion was industrial, semi-military, then it became more and more feminine – in the “Artist and Muse” hall, smoother lines can be traced.
“Fashion of the 20s and 30s is a whole story. In those years, cloche hats and narrow Parisian silhouettes were in fashion. Propaganda fabrics were also often used. In the Varvara Stepanova room you can see Parisian fashion magazines that were available then and could easily be brought from abroad. She asked Rodchenko to bring her not things, but magazines. She said that she would sew everything herself or order it,” said Nadezhda Plungyan.
It was believed that there was no class division in Soviet society due to the emphasis on unification, but in fact there was. The stratification was especially acute in the mid-30s and during the NEP. According to the curator, there were NEP men and ordinary working women in Moscow. And the exhibition demonstrates the differences between them: NEP women are depicted in luxurious coats, furs, hats and heels, while female workers are dressed very modestly.
But in general, a Soviet woman had to dress in such a way that she would be comfortable working. She doesn’t look very dressed up like bourgeois European women. The Soviet woman was the architect of her life, the architect of the city in which she lives.
And this is not an exaggeration, says the art critic. Women of the 30s changed a lot in the history of production, in the history of science, and in the history of art. They built the subway with their own hands. And all their exploits are displayed in the exhibition “Moskvichka. Women of the Soviet capital of the 1920-1930s.”
Tags: Revolutionary artist worker mother image Soviet Muscovite changed
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