Wednesday Lectures
THE ARTS AND HISTORY
FROM 862 TO THE PRESENT
862 AD was the date recognised by the Tsars as the beginning of Russia. Of course much had happened before then and this course, which will explore the development and inter-relationship of Russian history and its amazingly rich flowering of all the arts, starts in the mists of time. The shadowy Chiemerians, the pagan rites and beautiful artefacts of the Scythians - and then the coming of the Norsemen, the Varangians or, as they became known, the Sons of Rurik. Corsing down the rivers of deepest hinterland Russia on their way to Byzantium, these merchant warriors built staging posts that in time became the first cities of a new state: Novgorod and, above all, Kiev.
The story of Russia traces an extraordinary territorial growth from this thin riverine trading route out to the edge of the Pacific ocean, south to meet the Orient, north to Baltic and Arctic oceans -
and west to press against Europe. It is a story of what has been called a “self-colonisation”, parallel with the expansion of the New World. As it grew, so more and new peoples were incorporated, bringing with them new cultures, new arts - and new problems. The problem, above all, of how to control such a vast, sprawling mass of languages, customs, ways of life and expectations. Was this a Western, European country or a part of Asia? Was it a country, in any normal sense, at all?
The history of Russia is the shifting series of answers to that still-unresolved question. Reflecting it, like a giant kaleidoscope, is the ever changing, multi-faceted world of the Russian arts: music, painting, architecture, sculpture; poetry and prose; drama, ballet, theatre and film; music, opera and song. Art of the peoples, art imported from Europe and beyond, art slowly developing its unique flavour to reveal the suffering, hopes and ideals of this extraordinary land and its people.
Almost from the start we shall find that the superficial notion of Russian art as a mixture of icons and Tchaikovsky is as untrue as to think of Europe as defined by Gothic stained glass and Beethoven. There is as much variety, richness and individuality in the arts of Russia as, perhaps, Europe itself. To enter the history and arts of Russia is really to find a whole world of experience and enrichment.
Please note that at present it is unlikely that there will be gallery visits for this course.
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