Drapo Laver

On October 13, 2023 I will read my paper «The Images of Black People in the Soviet Union» at the conference «What is to be Done? Methodological Challenges to Art Historical Research» at the ICMA Institute in Iasi, Romania.

What is to be Done? Methodological Challenges to Art Historical Research in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

I would like to suggest my paper “Image of the Black People in the Soviet Union” for the panel “Critical art history today: race, gender and decoloniality in Eastern Europe”.  I am going to talk about visual representation of Black people, which was produced by white Soviet artists after WW2. Among the images are artworks and profane images of the socialist realist painters, graphic artists and photojournalists. For analysis I use the iconological method and postcolonial approaches of authors such as Stuart Hall, bell hooks, Kobena Mercer, and several others.  

The antiracist Soviet visual production had from the beginning some contradictions and require a new reading today.  From one side Soviet artists worked in the context of the global anti-racist movement. The Soviet anti-colonial (anti-Western) struggle was supported by many prominent representatives of the anti-colonial and human rights movement all over the world. From other side the images of the Black people were a part of block confrontation of two systems in the Cold War.  Soviet depictions of Black people were used both to promote Soviet ideas in the international communities and for internal Soviet politics. Since 1961 students from the newly independent countries of Asia and Africa began arriving in the Soviet Union. At this point, Soviet citizens encountered for the first time the consciousness of a (post-)colonial subject. The students carried with them both the ideas of a new open world and the experience of struggle against colonial oppression. This event was an important experience for the Soviet people, which could connect them to the global world. At the same time, in the USSR were documented the first cases of racial discrimination against Black students themselves, despite the fact, that the Soviet officials denied the existence of Soviet racism.

More information about the whole program you will find on the website of The Institute for Multidisciplinary Research in Art within the “George Enescu” National University of Arts in Iași.