Russian Architecture, Art and Revolution

Join Brooke Harrington and Judith Bing for a two-part presentation on Russian Architecture, Art and Revolution on Sunday, January 11th, 2-4PM, at the Cushing Public Library. The event is free and open to all.

Russian Wooden Architecture: Русское Деревянное Зодчество.  The first part of the presentation will focus on the traditional wooden architecture of the Russian people to better understand the roots of their culture and heritage. Illustrations will provide an opportunity to see the traditional wooden dwellings, barns and important religious buildings and how people lived within them. The speaker, Brooke Harrington, is a Cushing resident, professor emeritus, Temple University, and Center Associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University.

Art and Revolution in Russia: 1905 to 1940. The second part of the presentation will explore the extraordinary arts and architecture of this dynamic and conflicted period in Russian history, as a backdrop to consideration of a Resurgent Russia. As social and political forces mounted against the Tsarist regime and Bolsheviks proclaimed Marxist World Revolution, Russian artists were pursuing a separate revolutionary path, envisioning an aesthetic utopia aligned with modern movements in the West. While some would leave their homeland in pursuit of artistic ideals, many artists and architects remained in the new USSR where they turned their talents to creating an ideal Communist society. Yet they confronted a vast gulf between dreams and realities in a poor and undeveloped country, as their arts were increasingly enlisted to serve an emerging totalitarian state. The speaker, Judith Bing, is a Cushing resident, professor emeritus, Drexel University, and Center Associate at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University.

These presentations are hosted by the Cushing Public Library and offered as a free community event in in anticipation of the 28th Annual Camden Conference: Russia Resurgent, February 20-22, 2015.

The mission of the Camden Conference is to foster informed discourse on world issues. For more information, visit www.camdenconference.org, email info@camdenconference.org, or call 207-236-1034.

Image: Vladimir Tatlin, Project for a Monument to the Third International, 1919-20, Petrograd (Leningrad/Saint Petersburg)