Writer/theorist/publisher/organiser Gleb Kolomiets in Smolensk is attempting to coordinate research on radical Russian Romanticism contemporaneous with the Bouzingo/Jeunes-France, but is encountering historiographic challenges quite different in many ways than what independent researchers face here in the West (and similar in many other ways). His account of his current struggles in this direction are fascinating:
There was a quite serious school of history of literature & fine art in the USSR (Marxist-Leninist ideology always insisted on a primary nature of political and social conflicts in the questions of art and art history). Most investigators tried to describe and analyse the political and social background of biographies, but the problem is that they gave a communist interpretation for almost every political act of every artist/writer/etc. So most soviet investigations on the history of art is a lie. For example Pushkin who lived a quite apolitical life and concentrated mostly on his sexual activity and on sexual activity of his wife is often described as a 'fighter for freedom' and 'active participant of the Decembrist uprising'. Yes, he was somewhat involved in the Decembrists political group, but it's almost impossible to investigate the 'real' character of this relation because of communist propaganda in the historical writings on Pushkin.
Contemporary art history in Russia, on the contrary, is quite anti-communist and Pushkin is described as a fully apolitical figure or a national loyalist in "new" writings. Besides this there is a strong intention of biographers to write a "scandalous bestseller", the facts are distorted to achieve good sales. The most representative example is the investigation of Mayakovsky's suicide which I read couple of yeas ago. The author was certain that Myakovsky was murdered by the NKVD but his certainty wasn't proven by any facts. Yes, I can feel a falsification in the books I read, I can see the 'hollow' places filled by hollow words but it's extremely hard to reach "original" documents. Most publications of the letters by Russian classics and memoirs of their contemporaries were "edited" in Soviet times and there are no new re-publications now.
The relationship to prominent writers|artists|etc in Russia is very harmful: the classics are the saints and nobody dares to defame their virtue. So there is a huge amount of unpublished or extremely rare "discrediting evidence" locked in the archives and in special custody where any non-specialist is never permitted.
So I've described the problems which I shall surely face when I start my investigation on Russian romanticism and its social and political background. But I still think about these ideas as very interesting and perspective. I'll try to review available materials and books and try to make a decision: is it possible to be at least relatively objective in my investigation.
By the way, a couple of years ago I found out that there was a quite active group of Futurists here in Smolensk. I tried to find info on their activities, but I found out that there is no information on this issue on the Internet at all, and all existing documents are stored in the Moscow literary archive which is unassailable for those who have no historical/philological education or just live outside Moscow... The way of prostituting and perverting the history of art in Russia is much more straightforward than in the USA...
by Gleb Kolomiets
(See the post below for Kolomiets' translation of the only Bouzingo-related text he's found in Russian)
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