|
|
| Different connections at an exorcism seance Jānis Borgs, Art Critic Some quite private reflections on The Final Exhibition | |
| In Pils laukums, next to the entrance to the Literature and Music Museum, there’s a placard with an enticing title – The Final Exhibition. The fatal message gives rise to premonitory trembling about the Day of Judgement. But the answer to the question about it being ‘final’ turns out to be quite trivial – nothing is coming to an end, as the ‘final’ just means the latest, apparently, like the tram that has just arrived before the next one. It’s true, though, that what is occurring is that immediately after this exhibition the museum will be closing down for a previously planned building reconstruction. Therefore something final will however be taking place, after which a new beginning will hopefully follow, when logically one will perhaps announce a First Exhibition. For me as a non-literary researcher this Final Exhibition was enticing mainly with its promised display of rarities from the visual arts, collected by the museum. And, in addition, the wonderful concept of their manifestation – to show the collected “antique” pearls of art in a kind of metaphysical connection with the achievements of contemporary avant-garde high-flyers, moreover, served in a generous “infusion” of historical documents and information. And it has to be admitted that the efflorescence of anticipation gained enough “satisfaction”. The highlighting of the historical context significantly raised and strengthened the aesthetic values. I am somewhat allergic to annotations with paintings and literary commentaries, but here, in tandem with the artworks, they brought about vibrations of feelings which are rare at exhibitions. Now I was forced to correct my old assumptions a little – even the way the exposition was pre- sented here can be excellent. And, even more so, it was this dose of commentary and photo-documentation, specifically, which was the tastiest morsel to which I devoted most of my time savouring during my visit. This, with its conglomeration of impressions, created a considerable predominance over the artistic “mass” of the primary exposition. The exhibition was overlaid by the mystical mood of some sort of special exorcism séance. Something about bringing spirits back to life, reincarnation in new works of art, the burning of incense, the dredging up of the thick silt of memories, the washing away of mournful graveyard reflections and contemplation on the meaning of life... So, for me too, alongside the filling in of all sorts of gaps in my knowledge, the wellsprings of private experiences clogged up long ago were suddenly opened up. Unexpectedly I came to the conclusion that I have been directly or indirectly associated with a considerable number of the personalities surveyed at the exhibition, or some other personal “connections” had once been formed with them. In the sense of exorcism, the central personality of the exhibition was revealed to be a thoroughly exalted lady, Mirdza Naikovska, more widely known to us as People’s Poet of the Latvian SSR Mirdza Ķempe. In Soviet schools her quite fervently cultivated “friendship between peoples, Soviet patriotism and the theme of peace” were always being highlighted during Latvian literature lessons. Meanwhile, at that time, in the 1960s, I began to delve into the world of Kafka, Sartre, Camus, Dostoevsky and Nietzsche. And in poetry, I felt closer to the Dadaists or Futurists, or even Omar Khayyam. None of them were in any way values consistent with official Soviet culture. I perceived Ķempe’s “red” soul, as it seemed to me, in her composition ‘I live in Ļeņina iela’. I lived there too, more precisely – I studied in the same street (now Brīvības iela). The applied arts school was located there, and the large windows in my third floor classroom were directly opposite the building where the famous poet lived. At times I peered over with a certain voyeur-like hope of seeing something special. Nothing came of it. Yet I felt that we were on two opposite sides of the road, not just physically, but also ideologically – if by this we understand the officially espoused sentiments at the time, which also liberally pervaded the poetry of Mirdza Ķempe, at least the part which was extolled in school programmes. My parents also knew the poet quite well. After the war, my father worked with Mirdza Ķempe on the newspaper Latviešu Strēlnieks [‘Latvian Rifleman’]. At times he did however sow the seed of doubt in me, praising Ķempe, who had another – truer value which was expressed in her so-called intimate poetry. And quite often he also mentioned the poet’s first husband, pre-war Latvian aristocrat of the intellect, Eriks Ādamsons. While still at school I began to collect Zelta ābele [pre-war publishing house] editions and by “dredging” through antique bookshops also obtained copies of Ādamsons’ works. These encouraged me to re-evaluate my obscurant reserved attitude to the People’s Poet. Probably a certain lack of experience of life and the feelings of love played a role. As time goes by, and having gained more maturity in life, I am finding out more and more about the paradoxical duality and diversity of this great personality. And also about my sometimes pitiful dependence on the usual stereotypes used by society in its evaluations. Don’t judge a man by his hat; don’t judge and you won’t be judged – these are sayings which should be remembered when we try to measure past events and people by today’s standards. In later years, I saw the famous photograph of a finely dressed lady – poet Mirdza Ķempe – and her super elegant husband, Eriks Ādamsons, the intellectual and gentleman, promenading along some boulevard in the centre of Rīga. This image acquired an iconic and archetypical significance for me, and embodied a generalized image of some sort of pre-war Latvian European type of cultivated, educated and flourishing intelligentsia and society that, however, had been dramatically lost. And that strengthened the tangle of inconsistencies that followed even more – how could it happen that so many people from this refined and educated public could almost willingly submit to the influence, ideological illusions and brutality of foreign powers?... In many cases the explanation is – fear. But from where did the enthusiasm and passionate involvement come? As for the “red” side – the answer may partly be provided by the Left-leaning tendencies that existed among Latvians, the roots of which lay in the experience of oppression in the past, in 1905... Among the Western intelligentsia, even now, leftism for many has always been a matter not only of conviction, but also of “good form”. Many people, raising their flag of social justice and idealism in this way, also fell into the secret traps of foreign powers and their ideology, losing their way in Escher-like labyrinths, the exit from which was found only by few. Because there were certain consequences – if you’ve once said A, well then continue with B, C, D, E...Z. Mirdza Ķempe’s leftism was also supplemented by a quite demonstrative Russophilia. The poet often mentioned the slogan “A free Latvia in a free Russia!” which had sprung up during the First World War. And more than once concurred with the idea expressed in the words of the Latvian SSR hymn including: “(..) in comradeship with the powerful Russian people (..)”. If her going off to Russia during the war could still be logically understood, then the poet’s quite surreal falling in love with the harsh image of Russian Artillery Gen- eral Count Aleksey Petrovich Yermolov (1777–1861), for example, was an unusual extravagance. Historians from our neighbouring country sometimes ascribe “progressive” traits to him, like his fa- miliarity with the Decabrists and his opposition to the Tsar, but he is and remains one of the most brutal enforcers of the interests of Russian imperialism. The future general began his fighting career participating in the suppression of the Polish insurrection and the savage massacre of Warsaw’s civilians in 1794, under the leadership of the oft praised Aleksander Suvorov. But in the end he triumphed as a hardhearted Pro-Consul in the Caucasus, a subjugator and mur- derer of the local inhabitants. One of his sayings alone says it all: “The Chechens are a people who won’t succumb to re-education. Only annihilation!” | |
 Mirdza Ķempe un Eriks Ādamsons. 1937 Publicity photos Courtesy of the Literature and Music Museum | |
| And it was this “favourite”, specifically, who our romantic poet chanced to set upon at the end of the 1940s, when she visited the Winter Palace in Leningrad. There, in the Heroes of the 1812 Patriotic War gallery at the Hermitage, from a portrait painted by George Dawe, he glared over his shoulder with its golden epaulette with a bull-like face, framed by a pathetic coiffure. Perhaps even an arrow was shot through the air by Cupid, and the ideal of a great man was found. From then on, the poet expended huge energy and effort towards the maintenance of the memory of her “chosen one”. Everything that could possibly be known was sought out about Yermolov’s biography and he became an immutable confrere in Mirdza Ķempe’s private life, her spiritual partner. The artist even practiced occult rituals and once, in a plate-moving séance, contacted the general’s spirit who expressed a wish that his grave should be looked after. Using her influence in society, the poet “stormed” the famous military man’s city of birth, Orlov, and achieved the dignified restoration of the Napoleon War hero’s memorial plaque and gravesite by the surprised Russian bureaucrats and Communist party members. Later on, this ended with the disappearance of the general’s skeleton. A shadow of suspicion, in the context of the possible interest of a relic collector, even fell over our poet. This did have some basis, as her obsession began to resemble a mania. One way or another, but Mirdza Ķempe did order a copy of the general’s portrait (the same one which was shown at The Last Exhibition) from a classic Latvian modernist painter, Aleksandra Beļcova, the widow of a similar classic, Romans Suta. She completed this commission meritoriously, carefully coming to terms with classical art rules that were anathema to her. And Yermolov’s portrait took pride of place in the poet’s home, in the form of an Orthodox altar. The “icon”, equipped with table lamps, now became an everyday object of worship and a listener to her monologue-like conversations. But the storms of emotion in the poet’s life didn’t finish with the reanimated “astral man”. In the Soviet state, a gutter press didn’t exist and people tended to gossip about things that interested them privately over a cup of coffee. Mirdza Ķempe really stimulated the minds of these people with quite a few seemingly eccentric actions, and during such gossip sessions fulfilled the role of being a particularly tasty delicacy. So, for example, the poet’s odd marriage to the indecently many years younger Linards Naikovskis served as a rich item of gossip. He, simultaneously and in parallel, turned out to be an “alternative” (at that time a much ruder description was used, as the politically correct notion “gay” was unknown in the Soviet region and such orientation was even criminally punishable). Thus a strange love triangle evolved in which the chauffeur Žanis figured in one corner, along with countless other unknown young lads as well. Truly, the ways of the Lord are unfathomable, and the tolerance of various institutions of the ruling power as well. The esteemed Soviet poet’s highly elevated official image mixed with an almost impossible and completely non-Soviet cocktail of decadence, occultism and elements of religiousness. Here one should be reminded that Mirdza Ķempe was the first to bring famous Indian guru, Sai Baba, over from Moscow in the 1960s, more accurately – a book with a summary of his philosophically religious views. The powers that be didn’t propagandize Sai Baba in any way, but these Oriental contacts of Ķempe’s and the culturally poetic activities surrounding them were built up at a high official level, and widely rolled out as a “progressive” example of friendship and the struggle for peace between the Soviet and the Indian people. In the exhibition comments we can read: “(..) maintaining her loyalty to the Soviet regime, she is also able to maintain contacts with the Catholic Church, practice Hinduism, defend the Latvian relatives of exiled authors, organize pensions for those who had been deported, and take under her wing writers who have returned from Siberia (..)” Kurts Fridrihsons The painter and refined intellectual, Kurts Fridrihsons, also definitely belonged to the previously mentioned category, only with the status of artist. After returning from the Gulag camps where he’d ended up in 1951 for being a member of the famous ‘French group’ of activists and a “dangerous anti-government element”, Kurts again made friendly contact with Mirdza Ķempe. Again – as she, too, had previously visited the ‘French’ cultural salon from time to time, but the trajectory of the poet’s life had moved in the opposite direction: to the heights of power and societal recognition. Fridrihsons’ portrait of Mirdza Ķempe, painted in 1957 and shown at The Final Exhibition, beautifully confirms the fact of this reunion. The portrait is unusually realistic, because he was already at this time one of the early heralds of Modernism in Post-Stalinist Latvia. I once met Fridrihsons at some birthday party celebration at the Mežaparks villa of artist Ērika Romane (this may have been at the time of the Awakening) where, among other things, he revealed to me his unbelievably optimistic view of the years spent in imprisonment. The artist didn’t dramatize what had taken place, he was even happy that destiny had given him such an opportunity to involve himself in his creative work, undisturbed, like in a cloister. While his colleagues who had remained in Riga hung about in cafes, he, behind the barbed wire, had usefully spent his time continually drawing and painting in watercolour, as much as the frugal Gulag conditions would allow. There were, however, some materials and over time quite a pile of small-sized works had accumulated. And that’s how he’d returned to Riga in 1956, with a backpack full of ideas and sketches. It only remained to put them up in an exhibition. And really – Kurts Fridrihsons quickly became popular for his art’s slightly abstract originality and complete distancing from tedious Socialist Realism, especially among young people and, according to my observations, even more so among young girls of high school age. Obviously this was due to the lightness of his paintings and their romantic aestheticism. A breath of the West and the aroma of French charm exuded from his works, which even the Gulag “sanatorium” was not able to eliminate. Kurts Fridrihsons returned unbroken, and with the stance and behaviour of a free man right up until the end of his life. He had a huge spiritual aura and strength. I have been lucky to meet a similar man with this type of character and personality, as well as an optimistic attitude to life in not very cheerful situations, in the person of our outstanding poet Knuts Skujenieks (also one of the brethren of the “Order” of the Gulag). During my study years, every so often I went off to Moscow together with my friends from my course. There we could regularly see exhibitions of art, equipment, science and other achievements from some country in the West – something that never happened in Rīga. American expositions, which appeared on the basis of agreements between both the warring Cold War great powers, were in great favour. There, for provincial Riga lads, seeing the American flag always created some excitement, as it appeared in the Soviet Union very rarely and the powers that be considered it to be like a red rag to an angry bull. A couple of times, just so that we could see the public display of the stars and stripes at a distance, we unobtrusively wandered along on the opposite side of Tchaikovsky Street as if we were “casual passers-by”, past the USA embassy besieged by militia and KGB observers. That’s why I was quite surprised to see this same stars and stripes flag alongside a small image of President John F. Kennedy at Kurts Fridrihsons’ workshop which I later visited during the Art Days open door event. These private workshops were zones that were free of censorship, and therefore very fascinating for visitors, as you could hope to see something there which would never appear elsewhere in the public space. But Fridrihsons light-heartedly maintained his position and ignored the public nature of the event and the Soviet taboo. In other words – go stick it... It’s not hard to imagine how many messages from “well-wishers” made their way to the “corner building” [i.e., the Cheka] at that time. Now, all the above could seem completely incomprehensible and comical for someone who doesn’t know – what was all this stupid fuss about? But in those times, these were very serious matters. Aleksandra Beļcova and others The second Mirdza Ķempe artist from The Final Exhibition, Aleksandra Beļcova, I met when I was already a student at the Academy of Art. At that time, I became friends with Aleksandra’s daughter, art historian and ex-ballerina Tatjana Suta. I assisted her with some art history research, as she somehow had respect for my quite decorative status as the President of the Students’ Scientific Association. In a small apartment in the centre of Riga, not far from the current Splendid Palace cinema, there were the komunalkas [communal apartments] of the intelligentsia with the atmosphere of a decaying manor. The grandeur of “peace time” (that’s what people called the period of pre-war Latvia) could still be sensed in the proud Biedermeier furniture. The presence of the family of Taņa Suta’s daughter, the young cellist Inga Suta, made the apartment somewhat cramped. A child plus her husband – Jāzeps Kukulis-Baltinavietis, a philosopher and an intelligent man, unemployed, and suffering a little from persecution mania, and Inga’s fat cello, inhabited the small “maid’s” room just a few square metres in size. You could sense that the mother strongly opposed her daughter’s choice of partner, and considered this dependent as a bit of an idler and a sponger. We were able to collaborate very well with him in the “Pollutionist” group inspired by the “hooligan-like” graphic artist, Māris Ārgalis, before the organs of power, with a weirdly paranoid kind of onslaught, terminated it in the early 1980s. Of course, in Taņa’s view, the beautiful Inga was worthy of some more eminent and wealthy spouse, at least one with his own dwelling. The painter and family friend, Jānis Pauļuks, poured oil onto the fire with an ill-advised gesture, when he brought Inga Suta one of his paintings as a present with the inscription on the back: “To Inga and her first husband.” The conflict that had been going on for years bubbled and grew, until the straw broke the camel’s back and at the beginning of the new era, as soon as the Iron Curtain opened, the long-suffering couple briskly headed off to Germany where they lived illegally in Munster. They left for ever, completely giving up on Latvia, and Taņa, and finally also an inheritance worth millions which is how our nation gained the wonderful Art Deco art museum – the memorial apartment of Romans Suta and Aleksandra Beļcova. Visits to Taņa’s always took place with a cup of coffee, biscuits, small snacks, a glass of wine and endless discussions about art, art and art, in all of its historical aspects. Memories of avant-garde life during the first period of independence consistently dominated – the Rīga Artists’ Group, the Expressionists, Cubism, Baltars, France, Le Corbusier and L’Esprit Nouveau. This is where I first found out about Niklāvs Strunke, who wasn’t allowed to be mentioned or shown in any picture in Taņa’s book about Romans Suta. In the group photograph of the Rīga Artists’ Group, the censors forced Strunke, this “bourgeois traitor” who had fled to the West, to be “rubbed out” from the photo, so that all of the eminent artists who can be seen in the image are seated around a mystical black hole. It should be added that at that time, the majority of Latvia’s Modernist works were stored in the art museum as a special collection and only favoured speci [particular experts] could gain access to them, but only by special permission, almost tiptoeing in the moonlight in a half-whisper... At least that’s how we, students at the Academy of Art, were once able to get into the “secret base” with the help of our Latvian art history lecturer. And the “perversely decadent bourgeois art” could be observed with bowed head through a gap, without even removing the paintings from the stand. As for Strunke, this master became very special and close to my heart when I equally secretly read a book of the artist’s memoirs which had been published by exiled Latvians, and smuggled into Riga through some crack in the Iron Curtain. But at Taņa’s I could breathe my chest full with the air of uncensored art history, so that each day I could again treat my friends to the cheery greeting that Niklāvs Strunke introduced to Latvia: ciao! Nearly every get-together was graced by the living legend – Aleksandra Beļcova, when she came in for a moment. Tiny and seemingly fragile as a little bird, an oriole, she lived in a separate room. But in the artist’s poise and character there was palpable the steel core of a strong personality. There was a kind of noble grand Russian breadth of character and peace about her. It’s not for nothing that this woman, so beautiful at any age, had caught the eye of Romans Suta himself, and he had brought her to Latvia. And there we had an excellent example of what we’d nowadays call cultural integration. Aleksandra Beļcova and her art became a significant fact of Latvian art. The wellbred lady never descended to the level of domestic trifles or slandering her granddaughter’s husband. She tended to ask: “Where is that umņiks [wise guy] Borgs? I want to talk to him. What do you think?...” And for a moment, while standing, we’d discuss one or another current art event, as she would never come to our communal sitting-around discussions. Even though the artist was nearing the 90 year threshold, a painting session would take place each day. Meanwhile I was brought closer to her husband Romans Suta, who had been shot in the Soviet Union, through my first art guru, the painter Ojārs Ābols. He himself had studied under the master Suta during the [pre-war] Ulmanis period, and in this indirect way, much of the wisdom he had gained in drawing and composition there at that time came and also settled in my consciousness, skills and convictions. This, in turn, I’ve tried to pass on further to aspiring young art students in a teaching career almost half a century long. See how everything is connected in some secret chain, as in Marquez’s ‘Hundred Years of Solitude’. Jānis Sudrabkalns However, Mirdza Ķempe’s brother-in-fate, a neighbour in The Last Exhibition and a fellow author, also a People’s Poet of the Latvian SSR and an academician as well, Jānis (alias Arvīds) Sudrabkalns-Peine was never forgiven his “leftness” by the light and national forces of the renewed Latvia. Because, as subtle a master of poetry as he might once have been, his “red” works produced in the form of pro-Stalinist and pro-Soviet odes and eulogies seemed just too nasty. The poet who, as late as in 1939, wrote for the Daugava magazine that “there is no greater enemy in the world than Communists” had got himself enmeshed into the highest echelons of their power and apparently had a great (still highly illusory) say among Latvian Communist Party Central Committee members. It is only logical that due to the sheer scale of such oscillations, Anniņmuižas bulvāris how has parted wi During the Soviet era, the poet dwelt in Mežaparks, where in addition to himself many other literati representative of the official culture and cherished at the time by the ruling power – Anna Sakse, Vilis Lācis, Žanis Grīva – had settled down. My father was on friendly terms with a number of them: they shared literary interests and, what is most important, wartime experience. Thus a few crumbs of a childish contact fell to me, too. Sometimes in the evening Father would say: “I’ve got to go and see Sudrabiņš.” After the long and late-night sit-togethers Father came home, and there followed lengthily narrated impressions, not always happy. The poet suffered from a mental disorder in the form of all kinds of suspicions and fears. Sometimes even fearing his own shadow. The paradox was that although being a man in power and having a say in all things, it was that power which he feared the most. Nay, not of Western agents, fascists or spies. Of ‘his own people’, and of himself. He used to repent his sins against the Soviets, put ashes on his head and in quite a Catholic ecstasy promised to do what it takes to redeem his mea culpa, mea ultima culpa. Quite like in Ķempe’s case, know-nothing that I was, Father understandingly tried to reduce my deep scepticism of the hyperbolised art of Sudrabkalns as a socialism mouthpiece by references to his work during the pre-war period of independent Latvia. Then again – only Zelta ābele publishing house convinced me later of Oliveretto’s talents by means of a wonderful No. 452 copy of a book published in 1935 and signed by its author Jānis Sudrabkalns – a collection of love poetry Klodijai [‘To Clodia’]. And once again I was made aware of yet another problem with the duality in personality. It must have been a widespread syndrome of totalitarianism sui generis. People lived double and parallel lives – the official one and a personal one. Žanis Grīva Of the writers living in Mežaparks, the one I met the most often was Žanis Grīva, a former combatant of the Interbrigades of the Spanish Civil War. As primary school boys we avidly read his Spanish stories alongside those by Mayne-Reid, Cooper and Jules Verne. And I, being the author’s ‘chum’, immediately gained special status in their eyes, as if there was some merit of mine added to those Pyrenees adventures. One can say this for sure: against all sorts of trifling intellectuals cultivated in pre-war Latvia, Žanis stood out as a monolithic man, a true and staunch Communist, a fighter who had gone through a number of wars, and that perception was enhanced by his bulky bulldozer stature and a massive face. In line with his beliefs, he also tried to duly put me ‘on the right track’: “Jānīt, whatever you do, never in your life betray the workers’ cause...” My hothouse plant experience of the class struggle equalled zero in those days. The workers whom I had seen here and there swilled vodka from large glasses, smoked Belomorkanal filterless cigarettes or makhorka (cheap coarse tobacco), swore foully and kept scheming where to pick up some lucrative work ‘on the side’. And rather loudly, depending on their stage of drunkenness, cursed Communists and their rule. Therefore I could not understand what I could have in common with those blokes. Why should I stand up for their cause? The “revelations” of Marxist ideology at the Art Academy were preached in Baroque manner by Mavriks Vulfsons, who was popular among students and with whom we were on very friendly terms; still, his propagandist’s efforts were not particularly convincing. Because the Voice of America and BBC broadcasts did not slumber either. Some clarity on the subject of leftism and ‘the workers’ cause’ came with the youth and students’ revolutions in the West in 1968, the slight breeze of which reached us too – like sending shivers down one’s spine. When Louis Eaks, the leader of the British League of Young Liberals, a close pen-friend of mine for some time, arrived in Riga, he was the first to open my eyes: what sort of socialism do you say you have here – it is a veritable state capitalism. Workers have no say at all in this country. And finally Valdis Āboliņš, art manager from West Berlin, a member of the German avant-garde, who drove some respect for Left-wing ideology into our heads within a week. Something Vulfsons had failed to do over five years. Āboliņš laughed about the Soviet Latvian communists he had met – because almost none of them had a good knowledge of Marx and were unfit for debating those matters – urging, instead, as early as ten o’clock in the morning: “Better let’s just have a tot of Black Balsam, old boy...” The then renowned Latvian SSR People’s Writer Anna Sakse belonged to the same “red guard” category as Žanis Grīva. She also was our neighbour and lived not far from us. I didn’t have that much contact with this outwardly endearing-looking auntie, though somewhere in my little box of odds and ends there still is a fountain pen she once gave me. Sakse’s literary activities were dealt a huge blow by a critical article of Andrejs Upīts, if I am not mistaken, in the publication Cīņa [Struggle]. After the heavy-handed assault from the great classic, the writer was unable to recover, and fell silent for a long while. Vilis Lācis But the only one among the writers of Mežaparks with whom I had a connection without the mediation of my father was none other than the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Latvian SSR. Even more so, he was the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet and, of course, a People’s Writer of the Latvian SSR – Vilis Lācis. Once (it happened in the late 1950s) I blithely walked into the spacious living room of his house in Mežaparks. And there suddenly he appeared – the one and only great Lācis! Facing him there was me – something far more insignificant than the merest wisp. And then we talked. I said to him: “Good afternoon!” And he replied: “Hi! Well, boys, you’d better behave yourselves here...” It was my first, only and last 15 seconds of conversation with a genuine laureate of two Stalin prizes and seven Lenin medals. There’s no denying that I – quite like a woman – liked Lācis to an inordinate degree, because he was groomed like a gentleman and looked like an up-and-coming Hollywood movie star. In the Communist verhushka [elite, top of the social ladder], especially in Moscow, nobody could be compared to him. If anyone were to try to stand next to him, then every misdemeanour showed up all the more conspicuously. I must add that our “historical” dialogue was able to happen only because at Mežaparks primary school for several terms I sat next to the writer’s son Leonīds, who very occasionally asked me over to his home. There I was left with two breathtaking impressions: a) a huge cabinet with glass doors, behind them letters and envelopes squeezed in together on numerous shelves; b) a drawer full of money, from which Leonīds took some roubles for “ice-cream”. I had heard about the writer’s open account at the State Bank. The novels published all over the globe provided enormous royalties, which were supplemented by the income from working in the state administration. He was able to buy anything he desired, the only problem was the limited assortment – the Soviet Union was a “bear cage”... And there they had everything – a villa, a car... Though there was some unpleasantness associated with the Mežaparks house which Lācis’s family built in the mid-1950s on the site of a bomb crater. It later turned out that its structural engineer was the same scoundrel who had built the Salaspils concentration camp. A quick trial resulted in the death penalty. No one ever uttered a word about Lācis’s hamsunistic problem as regards collaboration. Revelations about the master’s Stalinist duties beyond literary ones in the struggle against the “class enemies” came to light only with the National Awakening. Although it was Zelta ābele again and its publication about the Year of Terror that had already educated me long before that. Nevertheless, the gentle and particularly intelligent Leonīds was a fan of good and decadent literature, no matter how weird this might sound when talking about a student in the 6th–7th grade. He admired the unsuitable-for-children Maupassant, the can-can, women’s legs in fishnet stockings and Belle Epoque champagne... One of Leonīds’s brothers, however, surrendered himself wholly to the fanaticism of American jazz at a time when the slogan От джаза до ножа – один шаг [‘From jazz to a knife – just one step’] was cultivated. Many observations of Soviet realia led to the conclusion: the more ‘red’ the parents were, the more ‘white’ their children were. Konrāds Ubāns In The Last Exhibition, the poet Jānis Sudrabkalns was represented by a portrait affectionately drawn by the Latvian master of landscape, Konrāds Ubāns. This is a relative exception, because the painter usually did not bother himself much with the depiction of humans, but on this occasion the matter concerned a good friend and brother in arms among the Latvian riflemen. I have always found it congenial that the “crown of creation” in his landscapes would only appear as a splash of colour in a couple of brush strokes. A tiny blotch. I even spotted a philosophical notion there – to demonstrate the insignificance of the human being against the colossal mightiness of nature. Artistic goals stood above everything, even though these could turn out to be quite distant from Socialist Realism. Ubāns’s skills as colourist were highly regarded, and for many years the artist also fulfilled the duties of professor at the Art Academy of Latvia. I was also there, I also gained... The classic artist could be seen nearly every day, toddling along the extensive corridors of the academy like a loveable moss dwarf. Or otherwise he would be standing by the big windows, quietly chatting away with other similarly important greats, grumbling about the outrages of various new “isms” (some even muttered about something like Jewish art), because only one unwritten opinion was in circulation, namely, that the only real art belonged to Latvians, because they were the only ones who have an understanding of the subtleties and tonal nuances of colour. Fairly often nowadays one hears harsh criticism directed at Soviet education. I can only be heavily ironic about it – oh, how unlucky I have been to experience such a useless school and such mediocre teachers: Boriss Bērziņš, Leo Svemps, Konrāds Ubāns, Pēteris Upītis, Kārlis Jansons... And all of this for free. To an extent I was a pupil of Ubāns, too, because for a term or two he observed our painting class. Now and then he turned up, walked around everyone, mumbled something or smacked his lips, expressed some didactic comment, emitted aura and fluids, and quietly left. Because among non-painters the painting classes were not considered to be anything serious. It was only the basics. One would think that that’s why the professor didn’t get too worked up about us. Nonetheless, the honour, albeit little, remains with me. Dandies and fops The old guard of classic masters brought up in the [pre-war] independent Latvia set a certain tone of elegance at the Art Academy: in bearing, in manners and in dress. For instance, the perennially serious professor of graphic art Arturs Apinis reminded one of a banker from the times of Ulmanis, whereas the elongated El Greco-shaped rector Leo Svemps, author of skilful flower paintings, looked like a Baltic German baron had stepped out of some old picture. He had been educated as a lawyer, and his mastery therefore was also expressed in the “fireworks” of his dazzling speeches. At the end, however, no one could really tell what the speech had been about, since form prevailed over content. All of these well-groomed gentlemen obeyed a certain noblesse oblige: they wore dark suits, silk ties, white breast pocket handkerchiefs and polished footwear... A certain number of students followed the example of their professors, too. In the corridors of the academy there was no shortage of young, ostentatiously polite “British” dandies and “French” fops, whom the author of this article also tried to join. The prototype here was the cherished photo couple Mirdza Ķempe and Eriks Ādamsons as already mentioned, as well as dozens of other images from the educated society of the lost Latvia, which were excellently revealed to us at The Last Exhibition. It is clear that in a Soviet institution of higher education none of the neo-dandies had the authenticity of the pre-war culture. They could only imitate and pretend. However, it was great that the young people cared about style and keeping it up. As wisdom tells us – style is everything. Besides and moreover, such external glamour turned into something like a form of protest from the rearguard. The political authorities tried to combat “bourgeois ideology” and various anarchist hippies. But it did not know how to react to such an ultra-correct, yet patent counter-expression. The dilemma was that in the “workers’ state” there was no real alternative to proletarian culture. The experiments of the Russian proletarian cult of the 1920s quickly disappeared into the depths of history, and the middle-class taste returned again with a new vigour. In fact, the powers that be focused on the same “bourgeois” culture, the same English suits, and longed for a similar splendour. And there were not many who qualitatively succeeded here. For example, no one could compete with the famous opera singer couple Elfrīda Pakule and Aleksandrs Daškovs, who could stroll along Ļeņina iela so glamorously majestically as if they were some kind of prominent aristocrats. This couple could definitely be up there with the already mentioned pre-war prototypes. However, the sharp contrast with the surrounding unpretentiousness gave rise to unintentional associations that this was exactly the way some Texas oil tycoon with his million dollars wife could look. And Lācis also succeeded in this. The dance with the awakened spirits tired me out. Quite a big group of undisturbed ones still remained for other exorcism seances. I walked out into the daylight and the different world of present reality: image, management, investments, hackers, fuckers, servers, gays, defaults, press releases, androids, e-mails, presentations, PR, CV, WiFi, HiFi, megabits, Google, consolidation, harmony, euro, NATO, bingo... P. S.: The Final [exhibition] was a true delight, and I was keen to find out the curator’s name. On the wall there was a list of the various members of the exhibition team. But the chief “conductor of the orchestra” and the bright mind behind the concept remained secret. After a little effort, I found out that the head of the communication department of the museum Inga Surgunte and her colleague Baiba Vanaga were responsible, not as curators, but as the ones who gathered together and arranged the materials. To them and to all the others involved in this cultural event I wish to express an appreciation-filled Thanks! Translators into English: Uldis Brūns, Laine Kristberga, Sarmīte Lietuviete | |
| go back | |
