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

我的博士项目将侧重于艺术家圈（Krug khudoznikov），这是一个在1926年至1932年之间正式活跃的列宁格勒艺术团体。作为列宁格勒艺术界唯一的一大群年轻艺术家，它是苏联艺术生活的缩影。因此，我的项目的主要目的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，在苏联官方对艺术史的描述中，“圈子”的成员是被抹去的整整一代艺术家的一部分。几十年后，俄罗斯学者仍在努力将他们恰当地放在艺术史中，而西方学者则完全忽略了他们。其中一个主要原因是，这一代的艺术家既不是先锋派的，也不是社会主义现实主义的。因此，它们不符合目前流行的俄罗斯20世纪艺术叙事，这种叙事通常被呈现为前卫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，需要对苏联艺术进行重新评估。通过分析这些艺术家对艺术史的影响，并将他们重新置于全球艺术史的背景下，我的项目将呈现出一幅更细致入微、更具包容性的俄罗斯20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.