"I was subjected to all forms of bullying"

Ernst's memoirs of the unknown about life in the USSR: surveillance of the KGB, exclusion from the Union of Artists and work at the factory

About the death of the unknown, who was 91 years old this spring, his friend Oleg Sulkin said on Facebook. In the West, the unknown lived for the past 40 years: in 1976, he emigrated from the USSR, where his art was called "degenerative", first to Switzerland, and then in the United States.

In 1962, the then Soviet Secretary General of the Secretary of General, Nikita Khrushchev, gave a derogatory definition of the unknown work in 1962. Nevertheless, after his resignation and death, the unknown, at the request of the relatives of Khrushchev, created a tombstone of the former first secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU at the Novodevichy cemetery.

At the end of World War II, Ernst was seriously wounded by the unknown person, and he was mistakenly considered the dead and awarded the Order of the Red Star for the heroism shown. In 1955, the unknown became a member of the section of the sculptors of the Moscow branch of the Union of Artists of the USSR and until 1976 was engaged in artistic activities in the Soviet Union.

Nikita Khrushchev at the Avangardists exhibition in the Manege, December 2, 1962

In 1976, the unknown emigrated to Switzerland, and in 1977 he moved to the USA (New York). In recent years, before leaving for the unknown, an open surveillance was carried out. He was persistently offered to stay in the USSR, for a long time they did not give permission to leave. According to the sculptor, shortly before the emigration of the USSR authorities asked him to make a bust of Brezhnev in exchange for the return of prestigious orders, but he refused. The last work of the unknown in the Soviet Union was the bas -relief on the building of the Archive of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Turkmenistan in Ashgabat .

A year after emigration, the unknown person was already well mastered in New York, although he himself said that he feels in the West a "child". In 1977, the sculptor made a speech at the presentation of the books of his friend, the Soviet writer and scientist Alexander Zinoviev, the gaping heights released in Switzerland. The record of this performance and answers of the unknown to questions of American journalists was preserved in the archives of Radio Liberty. At a press conference, after the introductory word, Ernst the unknown said, in particular, about how he was followed by surveillance and how he refused the proposal of the Soviet authorities to make a bust of Brezhnev:

"In the 62nd year, I was kicked out [from the Union of Artists] after a clash with Khrushchev. This was reflected in my fate as follows. 10 years I did not have the opportunity to work as a sculptor. I had no orders, I had no materials. I worked as anyone. I worked at the factory, a caster, a mason. I did not help some official artists to do their official things. I earned them. I earned it. In a variety of ways, I was accused of all sins. They offered to stay and offered to fly out the bust of Brezhnev.

I was subjected to all forms of bullying. I was accused of all sins

During the year, I was conducted "open surveillance". What does it mean? Two cars were on duty near my workshop. Without hiding that they are related to me. Several very large men sat in one car, and the second car was with a walkie -talkie. Moreover, the car with the walkie -talkie was very unusual for Russia, such a color as in America a taxi, that is, it was striking. I and my assistants called this “yellow“ jaguar ”machine, based on Simenon’s novel. I behaved in the atelier in such a way that this machine does not exist because I thought it was psychological pressure, because you could not monitor the yellow“ jaguar. ”In the end, one fine morning they knocked on the door. The driver came from this car, which he said and what he was doing here, what he did, what, he said, what was he, what is he, what is he and what he was, he said, what was he and what he was, he said, what was he and what he was, what he did, what he did, what he was, he said, what was he and what he was, he said, what he was and what he was. This car is everything that happens in my workshop. And we read it in chorus. This poem was written in elegant tones and, as was said, "in collaboration with the Russian elegic poet Pleshcheev." I will give one stanza from this poem so that you can understand how they are offended by us.

"Autumn has come, wet sidewalk

And the yellow "jaguar" is worth dejectedly

The radio was broken, the tape recorder

It would be better to send a phone number

Pure work, simple and easy

Rain floods muddy glass

Autumn is soon, rooks will fly away

Sees - knocks are wet at the fence

Of course, they are worse - the rain pours

Sees how to shake them from the cold

...

Of course, the time of fuss will end

After all, nothing is forever, you will rest and you "

The gentleman, sitting in the car, was so offended that he stopped saying with me. Then he was replaced - I don’t know, with a decrease or with an increase. Well, then they broke my finger, ribs, nose, ”Ernst remembered the unknown in 1976, talking in New York with American reporters.

In an interview with Radio journalist, Freedom Vladimir Yurasov two months after his arrival in the United States, an unknown person spoke about the plan of the monument to the victims of the Stalinist repressions, which he appeared before the 20th Congress of the CPSU Central Committee, which was debunking the cult of Stalin's personality. Immediately after the congress, representatives of the authorities came to the unknown who asked him to make a model of such a monument. However, soon this idea was abandoned by the Soviet leadership.

-In the press, your proposal appeared on the creation of the monument to the victims of the Stalinism, the monument, which Khrushchev also spoke about and about which, in my opinion, eight Leningraders were recently made.

- In fact, Khrushchev announced such a party’s decision, in fact, three prominent people came to me right from the XX Congress, since I worked on a series of work called "concentration camp" in Moscow. This topic was close to me. They knew about it, and they asked me to make a model of the monument. I made this model, but the thaw period ended and this project was forgotten. But I did not forget about this topic and continued to work.

- What is your plan of this monument to memory of ruined millions of people, Soviet people during the years of Stalinism?

- In the past, this model was the following: a plane of 500 square meters, covered with granite slabs, a second volume in the form of a parallelepiped was placed on this plane and a small thin mournful girl or a girl who covered her face - barefoot Russia, mourning about great losses, sat on this parallelepiped. The planes of the architectural monument should have been dotted with an endless number of camps of the camps. Then this monument was considered not as a protest monument, but as a monument to sorrow. Now I am restoring this project, I consider it my civic duty.

- Do you change the topic of sorrow on the topic of protest?

- I want to restore the former decision from photographs and drawings. In the process, apparently, time passed, some changes will be made, now it is difficult for me to say which specifics.

- But where to find a place on Earth for such a monument? In the Soviet Union, the current high authorities, judging by how it tries to shut up Stalinism, the monument of memory of Stalin ruined by Stalin will not allow. Where then?

- It would be the best and most correct to put it in Russia, but, alas, today, apparently, this is impossible. I believe that such a monument, albeit smaller sizes, should be established in the West as a symbol, that the memory of the dead is alive. This is necessary.

The art of the unknown

- Ernst Iosifovich, but the year 1976 ended, the year when you left the Soviet Union, the Motherland, a new year began, 1977. What would you like to wish your fellow countrymen, friends who are close to yours in the Soviet Union?

- There is a common wish - a wish for happiness, a wish for prosperity and a wish for health and success. But I would like to decipher them. I have always been a personalist, I always defended the right to my own Self, and the first and most importantly, that I would like to wish my fellow countrymen - more to be a person in general, a person with a capital letter and less subjects, to feel less related to false illusions and false obligations. I wish my fellow countrymen freedom. Freedom of movement and creative opportunities at any work, starting from the work of the digger, peasant, ending with the work of the intellectual. The fact is that freedom generates the initiative, the initiative gives rise to good work. Therefore, not slavery, but initiatives I wish my fellow countrymen.

I dreamed of seeing the world, I saw a lot, but for this I needed to commit an act essentially abnormal - I needed to break with everything that was dear to me

I dreamed of seeing Italy, I dreamed of seeing the world, I saw a lot, but for this I needed to commit an act in essence abnormal - I needed to break with everything that was dear to me, with my friends, with my friends, with the place for which I fought. I wish them the right to travel in the future without such tragic acts, without such drama. I dream that my daughter, like the daughter of any Egyptian, Spaniard, American, Frenchman, just like a young artist, on the day when she wanted, could go and see French and Italian art. The world is one, the culture of the world is one, and I would like that this normal situation has finally come in the Soviet Union so that not only the elect can ride, but so that everyone could ride. Here in the struggle I won the right to have two huge ateliers in Zurich and in America. The dream of my life was to see my drawing, even if you move out by five meters - it was impossible. I wish my colleagues to be able to, bypassing all the endless bureaucratic authorities, the whole table of ranks, based on their own work, have the studies that they need. I wish freedom and prosperity. But I would like my fellow countrymen to understand that material well -being and freedom are synonyms. We often think: order - there is a synonym for well -being. But freedom is order. I wish material well -being as a consequence of personal freedom for the people of Russia. And I wish to think about my own children and my own grandchildren to the leaders of Russia. Because today, maybe their children can use the benefits of free movement and material benefits, but with the prevailing structure, we all know that tomorrow they will be deprived of this, like the children of yesterday's leaders. And I ask them to think about the future of their own children if they do not want to think about the future of my daughter and the future of my friends. I want them to be good fathers and grandfathers.

The film by Vladimir Kara-Murza about the quarrel of Khrushchev and unknown after the exhibition in the arena. Memories of the artist and fellow practitioner Ernst Unknown to the studio Elia Belyutin:

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The world is one, the culture of the world is one, and I would like that this normal situation has finally come in the Soviet Union

As for personal and more intimate wishes, I would like to wish my friends, of course, health, tranquility and well -being. But since my friends are mostly people of creative work, I would like to wish them genuine success in their work. This I would like to wish my mother, I would like her books to be printed. I wanted to wish my father health. My family of well -being and calm, so that they are not very sad that I am far away, because I am with them the soul, so that they know it. I would like my daughter to wish that she safely completes the diploma so that she would be hardy, honest and good. I want to wish her to know that I love her very, very much. Friends who worked with me in the workshop, I wish them to continue our common cause, so that they do not retreat, so that they continue to be artists, work inside art and do not go astray for commercial art. In addition, I would like to see them all and I want to wish them this opportunity. My dear compatriots, my family, my friends, I wish you all happiness, prosperity and, most importantly, inner freedom and tranquility.

An unknown person was able to realize the idea of the monument to the victims of repression after the collapse of the USSR. He returned more than once and worked in Russia. In 1996, the unknown ended the monumental, 15 meters high, the work "Mask of Sorrow". This sculpture is installed in Magadan. He is also the author of many other sculptures known to almost every Russian - for example, TEFI television figurines.

"Mask of sorrow" Ernst Unknown

In 2005, shortly after his 80th anniversary, a journalist, author of the new Russian word Maya Protzker , talked with Ernst Unknown in New York.

- How did you even come to sculpture, which, first of all, formed you as a sculptor?

- The most interesting thing is that very early I began to draw and sculpt. My mother recalls that I sculpted from the bread crumb of various creatures, knights and even centauricians. And when my aunt was indignant, because that time was not rich, but my mother said: "For my son, art is more important than food."

- What a smart mother!

- In any case, romantic.

- What formed you as a sculptor, what are you now?

My fantasy formed me

“ I can tell you one thing that I later, later, understood.” Jung has such a theory - a collective unconscious, the meaning of which is that all sorts of archaic images live in our collective consciousness, so that we sometimes know more than we know. My fantasy formed me. And later, I was surprised to learn that I repeat many archetypes that are in various arts, but which I have not seen around me. That is, in the art of Eskimos, in Mexican art, in Russian folk art. This is a combination of almost a compatible one in a life of a person and a beast, polyphonic creatures, for example, in Buddhism or in Hinduism. I recognized it with surprise. But, in reality, I was called a modernist and scolded for modernism. I never considered myself a modernist, because my favorite art is ancient art. I came from the classics. Transformed this classic with the needs of my feeling, not fashion. But, of course, he used modern elements as cubofuturism. And I tried to unite, marry the modern with classical art.

Ernst Unknown and his first wife Dina Mukhina, 1965

- Bronze and stone. You work with both materials. What does each of them give you?

- Bronze gives freedom. Because the bronze technology itself is amazingly mobile and trembling. The Italian sculptor Mansa could even cast a flower, so bronze is trembling. Any of your breath, movement, touch of a finger or stack can be reproduced in bronze. The stone has always attracted me and still attracts me, just now I do not work with it, for practical reasons. Although not so long ago he cut down two four -meter totems in Carrara marble. The stone is amazing that it is an animated creature, it is a sleeping soul of sculpture inside the block. You enter into martial arts with this element, and hostile, because it is firm and tough, because it requires physical effort and moral control, internal discipline, so as not to spoil, and, at the same time, incredibly friendly, affectionate, luminous, literally with a soul. I have a trembling attitude towards the stones, as if it were a dialogue, if not with a living soul, in the sense of an animal and man, then with the soul of the elements, the natural element. No wonder the mountains breathe, glow. Mountains are a mystical miracle. The stone is mystical by nature.

- What did you survive when you were in the West? What struck you, what did you feel who you felt, how did you feel like?

I was touched to tears after anger, oppression, distrust, slander, lies and violence that I experienced in Russia

- I felt, on the one hand, very caressed. And I was touched to tears after anger, oppression, distrust, slander, lies and violence that I experienced in Russia. I even cried somehow. I will never forget. When I was in Geneva, I went to the French lesson, and there was a lovely young girl who taught several emigrants. And when she crouched in front of me, she wanted to explain with all her heart, she painted that I understood something, and all this is free ... Suddenly my tears in my eyes come up. In Russia, no one except loved ones and loved ones was so a bit, attentive and responsive. I thought: "My God, for what? I have not done anything for them yet!" I was diluted when I arrived. Andy Warholl, Rostropovich, Salisbury - everyone caressed me and treated me like an honorary guest and as a child. Then they were right. I really was a child, because all this was terribly oppressed. I had to learn to walk, everything is not right. You call on the phone - a different sound than in Russia. You stop a taxi that is lit because it is busy, but it is free. Each gesture, a simple gesture ... even how to open a beer. I opened beer with teeth in Russia, sometimes. It was even a special dashing. Here I tried my teeth - you will turn my jaw. I still have such a confusion. Still, I gave lectures on the philosophy of art, on the visual arts, on anatomy in Colombia, in Harvard, in many [universities]. And somehow my words were combined, they understood me, asked questions. And now, if I go to the store, I don’t know what 99% of items are called, and I just can’t remember. I can't keep it in my head. I feel an absolutely second -rate person.

Ernst Unknown and sculpture Nikita Khrushchev for his tombstone at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow

-Then we will still return to creativity and to the general creative situation. I will quote you now. Once you said to one Western correspondent while still in Russia: "In the 60s (after that the famous scandal with Khrushchev) I did not have orders, but there were hope." “Now I have orders, but there are no hopes”-you said this in the 70s. What formula would you bring now?

- Now I have orders and have hopes. That's the whole formula.

The writer and permanent author of Radio Liberty Alexander Genis says about the unknown: “Ernst Iosifovich, probably the most famous inhabitant of Russian America. In any case, he organically entered the landscape so organically that I cannot imagine our America without his work, without his exhibitions, without meeting with him. A man of an indomitable temperament, courage and arranging, a mighty talent and hard work, a thinker. The Renaissance horizons, the unknown, makes a deafening impression on everyone who was lucky to meet him. "

Alexander Genis

“In the first meeting, he stunned the pressure of philosophical eloquence: two faces of Khrushchev, the Black Sun of Dostoevsky,“ red ”from the Politburo, the battle of the gods and titans. The avalanche of grandiose concepts, the balls of intricate metaphors, the cries of the drunken prophecies - all this fell in a gulp without a break. Also, because he did not hide his ambitions, the main of which was to rid his art of the banal “man in pants”.

Fortunately, having broken the interlocutor with his exorbitant personality, Ernst became accessible and charming. Despite the fact that envious people accused the unknown of Gigantomania, in his youth he had a touching romance with a circus lilliput.

“Liliputs,” said Bakhchanyan , “their little weaknesses.”

Ernst Unknown, 1967

The unknown studio was located in the heart of Soho, and he cordially accepted everyone who came in. Taking advantage of this, Weil and I once wrapped it up on him in a winter evening. Having let us into the workshop, Ernst asked to wait until he jumps around the corner in an urgent case. Having slammed the doors, the unknown mechanically turned off the light, and we were locked alone with his sculptures in almost complete darkness. Sveta from the street lantern was enough only for stone monsters to throw nightmarish shadows. The unknown called his works, as they say in the songs, “thoughtfully”: “expectation”, “patience”, “loneliness”. But the mighty sculptures with the wreckage of legs and arms did not know this, rummaged around us like the characters of “Viya”, and, being in the middle of Manhattan, we could not count on a rooster that would have dispersed evil spirits with a cry. Moreover, it lights up late in winter. Zhechenev with horror, we were afraid to move. As often happens, vodka helped us out. Crawling and to the touch we made our way into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. In the light of his lonely bulb, we found a bottle of Kamchatka, near which Ernst found us pretty dared.

Years passed, but an unknown, cool cliff of the avant -garde, did not change. He always thought and created on a grand scale.

“From the studio,” he said once, not hiding pride, “they stole a sculpture in two tons.”

Meanwhile, the inexorable and ruthless course of progress led to the fact that opposite the workshop of the unknown, Oleg Kulik, a supernova star of Russian art, finally freed from the Kremlin censorship. Shortly before that, I met him in Moscow for a sober - in view of Veliky Lent - a meal. Publishing a dog , Kulik came to New York in a cage, securely locked after he bit the Swedish critic. When I visited Kulik in Soho, he looked at me with clever eyes and slapped my friendly.

It was also interesting to see how far it went how far the domestic art went since he left him, but not daring to drop himself in the eyes of the Rotozeys, Ernst first sent a phlegmatic assistant discharged from the Urals. Five minutes later, he returned, but already with foam on his lips.

“Ernst Iosifovich,” he yelled, “where is the ax?!” There, the Americans of the Russian man, like the last mongrel, hold naked in a cage.

“Life is short,” the unknown sighed, “but art is forever.”