The Circle of Artists (1926-1953): Artistic Agency in the Totalitarian Salon

我的博士项目将集中在艺术家圈（Krug Khudozhnikov），一个列宁格勒的艺术团体，正式活跃于1926年至1932年。作为列宁格勒艺术界唯一的大型青年艺术家团体，它是苏联艺术生活的缩影。因此，我的项目的广泛目标将是通过研究这些艺术家工作的艺术，历史和社会经济背景，加深我们对苏联文化及其机制的理解。此外，圈子成员是整个一代艺术家的一部分，这些艺术家被从苏联艺术史的官方记录中删除。几十年后，俄罗斯学者仍在努力将它们恰当地置于艺术史中，而西方学术界则完全忽略了它们。其中一个主要原因是这一代的艺术家既不属于前卫派，也不属于社会主义现实主义。因此，它们不符合当前流行的俄罗斯世纪艺术叙事，这种叙事通常表现为先锋派和社会主义现实主义之间的二元关系。事实上，他们的存在完全颠覆了既定的二元对立，需要重新评估苏联艺术。通过分析这些艺术家的艺术史影响，并将他们重新置于全球艺术史中，我的项目将呈现一幅更加细致入微和包容的俄罗斯世纪艺术图景。

My doctoral project will focus on the Circle of Artists (Krug Khudozhnikov), a Leningrad artistic group officially active between 1926 and 1932. As the only large group of young artists within the Leningrad art scene it was a microcosm of Soviet artistic life. Thus, the broad aim of my project will be to deepen our understanding of Soviet culture and its mechanisms by examining the artistic, historical, and socio-economic contexts within which these artists worked. Further, Circle members were part of the whole generation of artists that was expunged from official accounts of art history in the Soviet Union. Decades later, Russian scholars still struggle to place them appropriately within art history, while Western scholarship omits them altogether. One of the main reasons for this is that the artists of this generation were part neither of avant-garde nor Socialist Realism. Thus, they do not fit the currently prevalent narrative of Russian 20th century art, which is generally presented as a binary relationship between avant-garde and Socialist Realism. In fact, their existence completely upends the established binary and requires a re-evaluation of Soviet art. By analyzing the art historical impact of these artists and recontextualizing them within global art history, my project will present a more nuanced and inclusive picture of Russian 20th century art.