From the Peredvižniki’s Realism to Lenin’s Mausoleum. The Two Poles of an Apocalyptic-Palingenetic Path

The essay deals with figurative arts in Russia. There is a link between Russian realism of the end the nineteenth century and socialist art from the Stalinian epoch. This link is represented by Russian symbolism and avant-garde arts. In particular, it is analized how Suprematism and Constructivism overcame the mere imitation of life in favour of "life itself". Yet the germs of this revolution, as well as of its underlying apocaliptic-palingenetic aspiration, are nonetheless to be found in the nineteenth century critical realism by the Peredvizhniki - a true atelier of art as "zhiznestroenie", "building of life".