Art, War, and Empire: A History

From its foundation, modern Russian identity was defined by warfare. The imperial period, indeed, began with Russia’s victory over Sweden in the Great Northern War of 1700–1721. Russia’s cultural identity, on all levels, was articulated in images and stories derived from war and conquest. Napoleon’s decision to invade Russia in 1812 at the head of the largest army ever raised had a profound influence on the development of Russian national identity. The invasion fueled an explosion of nationalistic sentiments that helped shape the development of Russian intellectual and cultural movements for the rest of the nineteenth century. The explosion of lubki after 1812, as seen in the previous chapter, was seemingly sparked by a nascent nationalism and patriotism that emerged in response to Napoleon’s invasion. In fact, the prints were largely the result of semi-official patronage, and the popular tone of the lubki of 1812 merged with some classical artistic traditions, imported from France, and blended them with the native myths and symbols that defined the modern sense of Russian national identity. Artists such as Terebenev and Ivanov refashioned iconic figures such as the common peasant, the Cossack soldier, the Orthodox priest, and the Tsar in order to remind Russians of the great sacrifices they made and great price the French paid for their transgression. These symbols did not have to be invented since most Russians already recognized them. As Anthony Smith has argued, writers and artists often “rediscovered and reappropriated a selective ethno-history out of pre-existing myths, symbols and tradition to be found in the historical record and in the living memories of ‘the people’ in order to inspire nationalism.”