Viktor Vasnetsov, the Head of a Dynasty of Artists and Founder of the National-Romantic Style in Russia

“The richness of inner content in this man is striking”[1].
Ye. D. Polenova

The large-scale exhibition project “The Vasnetsovs. Across the Generations. From the 19th to the 21st Century” is timed to the 175th anniversary of the birth of the outstanding Russian artist Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov (1848-1926) and the 100th anniversary of the birth of his grandson Andrei Vladimirovich (1924-2009). In the history of Russian culture there are not so many artistic dynasties that have contributed as much in its development as the Vasnetsovs. Bold innovators in painting, they opened up rich prospects for the art of the future.

Viktor Mikhailovich VASNETSOV. Self Portrait. 1873.
Oil on canvas. 71 х 58 cm. © The State Tretyakov Gallery, 2024

Viktor Vasnetsov, turning to folklore and epic subjects, became the forerunner of symbolism and art nouveau in Russia. Apollinary Vasnetsov created unique historical paintings-re- constructions on the theme of “Old Moscow". Andrei Vasnetsov, one of the leaders of the “severe style", confidently asserted himself during the “Khrushchev thaw”. The masters strived for universalism and synthesis of arts working in the field of monumental and easel painting, theatrical scenery painting and in decorative and applied arts. They lived a highly intellectual life of thought, were interested in literature, philosophy, science, and religion. Although they belonged to different generations, their worldview was formed on the basis of pan-European humanism and Christian ethics, and the art of each of them encouraged rising above everyday life to comprehend the incredible beauty and harmony of the universe. “It is amazing what kind of people are born by the spruce forests of Vyatka growing on dry sand! Coming out of the Vyatka forests and appearing in the pampered capitals to their surprise are people who seem as if made from that ancient Scythian soil itself. Massive in spirit and strong in body, such were the Vasnetsov brothers. Dry strength of the old stamp lived in both Vasnetsovs”[2], - F.I. Chaliapin enthused. Little did he know that those words could also apply to Andrei, the youngest Vasnetsov, a significant figure in the cultural life of Russia in the second half of the twentieth century.

The exposition unfolds on three levels of the New Tretyakov Gallery exhibition space and aims to show exclusively iconic works from the Vasnetsovs’ heritage, which are arranged in the halls according to thematic blocks. The Tretyakov Gallery’s display of works by three prominent painters with an unexpected yet very important juxtaposition of their art may, in contemporary exhibition practice, sound like a kind of discovery.

Viktor Vasnetsov’s creative reverie

The central place in the exposition is occupied by folklore and epic works by Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov. It was for two decades that the painter maintained the position of an innovator in art. Among talented artists of the time, it was him, with his multifaceted art, who contributed to the formation of new aesthetic ideals and plastic techniques of painting in the twentieth century art. “The “Russian spirit” was sought not only in the past but was attempted to be discovered in the present, right near themselves”[3], by young painters around Vasnetsov - his younger brother Apollinary, Elena Polenova, Sergei Malyutin, Mikhail Vrubel, Mikhail Nesterov - who embodied medieval folk images in the stylistic forms of neo-romanticism, art nouveau, and symbolism. Vasnetsov became the founder of the national-romantic trend in Russian art and a prominent apologist of beauty in life and in art. As the critic Sergei Makovsky wrote, it was owing to Vasnetsov that “Russian painters’ view of the truth of history had changed radically. On the one hand, they came to realise that the fairy-tale and fantastic element was inseparable from it; at the same time, they came to feel and love its everyday reality, to see not only coronations, victories and ceremonious conclusion of unions, not only historical “moments” in it; they came to realise that resounding “events” - before, as well as now - dissolved in the elusive element of life, that the beauty and poetry of the past was not in them, that the most significant and eternal things were not eternilised by a glorious name, that, in addition to history described by historians, there was also a different kind of history which was revealed by creative reverie”[4].

Background. Discovery of Russian epos

After Peter the Great’s major reformist transformations re-orientating the country towards the European economic and cultural path of development, Russia was able to return to the roots of its national identity only by the mid nineteenth century. The reign of Emperor Nicholas I marked the beginning of a gradual process of development of the sense of national identity gaining momentum during the reigns of Alexander III and Nicholas II.

A century and a half of following Peter’s course took its toll for Russia. The great reformer turning a patriarchal country into a strong power, laid all the prerequisites for the division of society into two camps - the Westerners and the Slavophiles. Representatives of both groups, with the deepest love for their Fatherland, nevertheless thought differently of its historical future. In the early 1840s at Moscow University, the famous poet and critic S.P. Shevyrev[5] was the first to begin to give a course on Old Russian literature and folk poetry. He devoted two lectures out of thirty-three to the Russian epic poems, bylinas, and heroes of bylinas. The famous public lectures of T.N. Granovsky[6], who attracted the attention of contemporaries with his original concept of European and world history, were held there at the same time. The disputes that arose around Shevyrev's and Granovsky's lectures and related issues of understanding the significance of folk epos, in fact, marked the ideological confrontation between the Slavophiles and the Westerners.

Representatives of both groups, all with the deepest love for their Fatherland, nevertheless thought differently of its historical future. The Westerners saw the country in the European context, therefore considered it necessary to continue Peter's endeavours. “Every independent Russian public figure, - the historian V.O. Klyuchevsky wrote, - carries at least a small grain of Peter the Great, his spiritual ancestor”[7]. The Slavophiles advocated a return to the ideals of the pre-Petrine times. Insisting on the preservation of specific national characteristics, they believed that Russia should develop in an independent unique way. Over time, the Slavophiles developed the concept of the “Russian idea”, one of the main points of which was the principle of nationalism. The most acceptable formulation of the “Russian idea”, which incorporated the aspirations of Slavophilism and Westernism while rejecting the extremes of those currents, was developed in the 1860s by pochvenniks. advocates of return to the “native soil”. F.M. Dostoevsky, one of the ideologists of pochvenniks, associated the “Russian idea” both with the age-old national aspirations and with the capability of acquiring other peoples’ experience, capability of “global empathy”. The activities of the Slavophiles ultimately led to boosting the nation's spirit and to national revival.

In this case, folklore as a fully independent phenomenon, the keeper of folk poetry and wisdom, was destined to play a great role. A similar situation emerged in a number of European countries. However, in Western Europe this interest arose somewhat earlier with the birth of the romantic trend in philosophy and art. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, folkloristics, an academic study of folklore, appeared. In Finland, the so-called Finnish school, or the geographic-historical method, was developed, the founder of which was J. Kron, and which was continued by his son K. Kron and by A. Aarne.

The main ideas of the Finnish school were the attention to the locality from which folk art originated and the compilation of indexes of the plots of fairy tales and runes. The Finnish school influenced both Russian and European folklore studies.

The well-known scholar M.K. Azadovsky wrote: “The first Russian collectors and researchers of folklore were quite aware of everything that was happening in this field in West European literature. They were familiar with all the classical works of the early European folklorists and scholars who, to a greater or lesser degree, put forward the problems of folklore, - Percy[8], Herder[9], the German Romantics, Niebuhr[10], the historians of the young historical school in France, and the Slavic folklore philologists. And yet there are facts from early Russian folkloristics which testify to its separate path and the already reached high level. The edition of Kirsha Danilov’s collection by Kalaidovich[11] in 1818, by its editioning principles[12] appears to be one of the most remarkable editions in all European folklore studies in the first two decades of the 19th century; Kireyevsky’s[13] collecting work, in its scope, breadth of coverage, and results surpasses everything that was done in this direction in Western Europe at that time; Kavelin’s[14] scientific concepts in many respects anticipated the main and central provisions of West European science”[15].

As is well known, it was at that time, from the appearance of Kirsha Danilov’s Collection (1804) and then of the bylinas from P.V. Kireyevsky’s collection (1848), that the discovery of Russian epos took place. However, few people at that time had any idea that in the northern outskirts of Russia, in Zaonezhye, on the banks of the Pechora River and at the White Sea shore, there continued to exist an undying oral poetic tradition. Only as late as the 1860s did regular expeditions to those regions begin resulting in the discovery of more than three thousand texts of most interesting tales. First P.N. Rybnikov (1861) and then A.F. Gilferding (1871) travelled to the Olonets province, and compiled a three-volume book of “Onega Bylinas”. According to Gilferding, those who wanted to sing bylinas were so many that some had to wait for their turn for two or three days. “I would write down the bylinas until I was totally physically exhausted”[16], - the scholar admitted. During the two summer months, he listened to 70 singers and took down 318 bylinas from them.

It was up to mid-nineteenth century scholars to reflect on the significance of folk creative activity in all its manifestations, painting, music, poetry. Major scholars - philologists, historians, linguists, Slavists, collectors and publishers - devoted their works to the study of Russian epos with the books “Russian Folk Poetry” by F.I. Buslayev (1861), “On the Bylinas of the Vladimir Cycle” by L.N. Maykov (1863), “Ilya Muromets and Kievan Bogatyr Heroes” by O.F. Miller (1869) seeing print at that time. Three issues of “Great Russian Tales” by I.A. Khudyakov (1860-1861), “Folk Tales Collected by Village Teachers” by A.A. Erlenvein (1863), “Russian Folk Tales, Rhymes and Fables” by E.A. Chu- dinsky (1864) were published at the same time. Along with fairy tales, other folklore works were published, such as the famous “Proverbs of the Russian People” by V.I. Dahl published in 1861.

The works of F.I. Buslayev proved especially popular with Russian painters. In his work “Everyday Life Layers of Russian Epos” (1871), the scholar wrote: “It is fair to say that Russian folk epos serves for the people as an unwritten, traditional chronicle handed down from generation to generation for centuries. Not only is it a poetic recreation of life, but also an expression of historical self-awareness of the people <...>. In its bylinas, the Russian people became aware of its historic significance”[17]. This feature of bylinas must have been captured by V.M. Vasnetsov when he worked on his “Bogatyrs” (1881-1898, State Tretyakov Gallery). The monumental power and grandeur of the images created on the canvas go beyond the illustrative framework of the “invented” plot and in their convincingness and strength of emotional impact approach the heroics of chronicles. An eloquent proof of this is an episode told by the writer Boris Shergin about the stay in Moscow in 1915 of Maria Dmitryevna Krivopolenova, a taleteller from Pinega (her sculptural portrait at that time was created by S.T. Konyonkov who called her a “prophetic old woman”). “Marya Dmitryevna visited the Tretyakov Gallery,” - the author reminisced, “walked through the halls tired, her day began at four o’clock in the morning. But in front of Vasnetsov’s painting “The Three Bogatyrs”, the old woman livened up and brightened. - Look, - she turned to the surrounding visitors. - Once upon a time there lived glorious bogatyrs. It’s not a fairy tale or a fable but life as it is. Ilya Muromets is looking out for the enemy from under his arm. A lead-filled mace is hanging on his wrist, it’s like a mitten for him”. - And the taleteller began singing a bylina: “Ilya raises his fighting stick// Above his mighty shoulders”[18].

Buslayev, one of the first people to note the peasant’s desire to colourfully and ornamentally decorate objects of ritual and everyday life, was often asked for advice by V.M. Vasnetsov, Ye. G. Mamontova, Ye. D. Polenova[19].

The feat of creativity

Viktor Vasnetsov turned to folklore subjects in the late 1870s, when the populist ideology of narodniks began to flourish in Russia with its call to search for the roots, get closer to the people and help them. The country saw appearance of an active stratum of society represented by raznochintsy, the intelligentsia not belonging to any social class formerly established in Russia, while in the privileged strata there appeared the “repentant nobleman”, a type unseen before (the expression belongs to the sociologist and literary critic N.K. Mikhailovsky). The Russian intelligentsia began heroic, sacrificial “going to the people”, which for a short while was joined by Apollinary Vasnetsov[20]. It took the elder brother some efforts to bring him back to artistic activity. Russian realist painting was then dominated by the critical trend with its characteristic denunciatory intonations and pity for the common people understood as the peasant man. Vasnetsov, too, began with similar works, but despite their unquestioned success, especially of the painting “Moving Home” (1876, State Tretyakov Gallery), the artist dramatically changes the subject matter of his works and turns to folklore themes. Later, in a letter to V.V. Stasov, the master partly reveals the reason for such a turn saying that as in his childhood he lived among peasant men and women, he “loved them not in a populist, narodnik, way [bold type by O.A.], but simply as his friends and pals; he listened to their songs and fairy tales, lost himself in them while sitting on the stove in the light and crackling of the splinter torch”[21]. That is, from the early days, he perceived the village people surrounding him as the bearer of folk wisdom, poetry and art. Later, Vasnetsov summarised: “... Although I am only an artist, I love my people not only in paintings and genres - I love them through and through, their mighty, if sometimes sweeping, nature, their song and fairy tale, their artistry, and finally their long-suffering history, one of the sorrowful chapters of which we are living through now ...”[22].

Plunging gradually into the elements of poetic myth and epic worldview lying beyond the boundaries of rational experience, Vasnetsov, and then his followers, searched for new plastic techniques of painting with which to depict the fictional world, and this inevitably led to the stylistics of art nouveau and symbolism. Vasnetsov's innovation was so obvious and unexpected that it did not meet with understanding among his contemporaries. Only decades later was he given an adequate appreciation of his experiments. “The artist’s painting... “Slaughter” opened a new era in Russian art because it initiated attempts to capture the ideal of national beauty. We know that the artist deeply felt and was inspired by folk art and epos, bylinas, and fairy tales,”[23] - Igor Grabar noted.

In 1880, immediately after the painting “The Last Battle of Igor Svyatoslavich’s Army against the Polovsty” (1880, State Tretyakov Gallery) Vasnetsov created “The Flying Carpet” (1880, Nizhny Novgorod State Museum of Fine Arts). Both paintings, negatively perceived by the contemporaries, became programme-setting for the painter’s creative work[24]. The idea of the “Flying Carpet” was in a way explained by Apollinary Vasnetsov when he compared the architecture of the Kremlin with the beautiful dwelling of the Firebird. “The Kremlin was the product of centuries-long creative work of the people; everything the people could create took a tangible form there. Bylinas and fairy tales were told about it, it was made into a fairy-tale dwelling of the Firebird”[25]. What rare qualities the fantastic bird itself had to possess that its “beauty” was craved not only by the fairy-tale hero but, in a metaphorical sense, also by the author himself, if its dwelling was so beautiful?!

The “Flying Carpet”, as is known, found a place of pride in the dining room of S.I. Mamontov’s Moscow flat and became a kind of emblem of the Abramtsevo circle. A little later, Vasnetsov clearly formulated the artistic concept of the community. “Truth, goodness, beauty is the most necessary and essential food of man, without them man will waste himself and perish! There are happy people and families who have been directed by God to serve any of these life-giving principles. It seems that the hospitable home of Savva Ivanovich and Yelizaveta Grigorievna shelters the hearth for serving goodness and beauty”[26]. What the artist meant by the concept of beauty can be learnt from his letter to Stasov. “Beauty for us was not just per se but served as a reflection and expression of the highest spiritual beauty, i.e. inner beauty, not only outer. With regard to this I heard from Antokolsky[27] that the Greeks expressed the ideal of outer physical beauty, and the Christian era gave the artist the ideal of spiritual beauty, which is inner, therefore, supreme...”[28], - the master wrote. In stating that, he was close to the ideas of his favourite writer F.M. Dostoevsky who put the famous syllogism “beauty will save the world” into the mouth of his literary char- acter[29].

Victor Mikhailovich’s costume and set design sketches to N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera “The Snow Maiden” (1885, State Tretyakov Gallery) are a completely different stage in the art of the second half of the 19th century. Having deeply penetrated into the understanding of the spirit of folk culture, Vasnetsov managed to create works that, by their artistic novelty, conquered and became a standard for a whole generation of young painters. “Only a man selflessly in love with his native country, deeply understanding its special, individual charm, could rediscover the law of Old Russian beauty having rejected all the schemes and distortions of superficial nationalists and frivolous representatives of academic eclecticism"[30], - A.N. Benois wrote.

Later, the artist told how the sets for “The Snow Maiden” were born: “The first time I saw the Snow Maiden was on Trinity Day on the Sparrow Hills, and the Berendey Chamber came to my mind when I was admiring a Kolomna Palace model. Many of the artists wondered where I got such colours for the Snow Maiden. My answer is very simple - from folk festivals in Vyatka or on Maiden Field in Moscow, from the iridescent play of pearls, beads, coloured stones on kokoshniks [a traditional Russian women’s headdress], body-warming quilted jackets, fur coats, and other women’s clothes”[31].

The beginning artist Ilya Ostroukhov, a participant in the Abramtsevo circle, shared his impressions of another masterpiece by Vasnetsov, “Ivan Tsarevich Riding the Grey Wolf” (1889, State Tretyakov Gallery), which, like the earlier canvases, did not get proper appreciation among his generation: “Yesterday the painting by Viktor Mikhailovich was received for the exhibition. Whoever I have asked about it likes it very much, especially Savitsky, Kuznetsov, Polenov, even Yaroshenko[32]. I like it very, very much. Since I saw it, new details have appeared in it and all of them only add beauty to it and make it more and more interesting and poetic. One new detail is very large - now there is a wild apple tree blossoming between the figure of the Tsarevich and the right edge of the painting”[33].

Vasnetsov and Younger Generation Artists

Vasnetsov was followed by Elena Dmitrievna Polenova who in her work used a similar, already proven approach of the inner comprehension of poetic myth, introduction of elements of folk art into the fabric of her painting, and using the experience of realist painting. How this creative process proceeded is described by N.V. Polenova in great detail in her account of how Yelena Dmitryevna’s famous cabinet was created in the Abramtsevo carpentry workshop and became particularly popular in Russia. “Its general form was inspired by one cabinet made by V.D. Polenov, and the details were taken by Yelena Dm[itryevna] from the museum and her sketchbook; the lower part with a retractable handle is from a shelf from the village of Komyagino; the handle is from a painted bottom found in the village of Valischevo, Podolsk district; the upper lattice is from the front of a cart; the colonnette was found in the village of Bogoslov, Yaroslavl province; and the vase with a rosebud depicted on the first cabinet is from V.D. Polenov’s sketch book drawn from a swing on Maiden Field"[34], - she wrote.

It is known that Polenova, using Vasnetsov’s sketches, made stage costumes for N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov's opera “The Snow Maiden” staged in 1885 at the S.I. Mamontov Moscow Russian Private Opera; later on, her fascination with folk embroidery led to creation of remarkable decorative panels, “Firebird” and “Flowering Fern”. In the themes similar to Vasnetsov’s, she achieves the level of generalisation approaching a sign or a symbol. It is noteworthy that the fantastic Fern Flower, as well as the fairy-tale Firebird, exist exclusively in the world of imagination. In a letter to V.V. Stasov she shared with him her idea of embroidering the “Firebird” for the 1896 All-Russian Exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod. “The subject I chose is the fairy-tale Firebird guarding golden apples. I depict a dark night, clouds in the upper part, crescent and stars seen between them; there is a tree with golden fruits on it in the middle; there is a fire bird dozing on the top of the tree; fabulous flowers and herbs are intertwined and circling the tree. In the lower part, between the roots of the tree, little hares lurk; lower still are marsh grasses, reeds and seaweed - everything much stylized"[35].

Polenova's desire to “capture and express those fictional images which the imagination of the Russian people lives and feeds on"36 can undoubtedly be seen as a kind of response to Vasnetsov's call to turn to the world of “reverie, dream, and our faith”. The sketches of peasant hut interiors, utensils, carvings, embroideries made by her during her trips to different provinces of Russia, were used as a necessary preparatory material when illustrating Russian folk tales. But the interest itself in Russian folklore - fairy tales, proverbs and sayings - was largely initiated by Viktor Mikhailovich's work. Was it not under the impression of Vasnetsov’s “Alyonushka” (1881, State Tretyakov Gallery) that in the folk tales and rhymes illustrated by her, a great deal of meaning was placed on the landscape background? In doing that, the artist sought to find such motifs in nature that helped her to embody “her inner feelings” as well as conveying a living poetic tradition. Polenova’s idea to “express the connection of the soil with the works that grew on it”[37] through landscape a little later met with the understanding of M.V. Nesterov and I.I. Levitan. It was through nature that both painters in their works revealed the mysterious world of the human soul. Nesterov believed that against the background of Russian landscape “one feels better and clearer both the meaning of Russian life and the Russian soul”[38].

"The poetry of nature and Russian nature in particular”[39] is what M.V. Yakunchikova-Weber wanted to surround her son with from the cradle when she did poker work and painted two panels with stylised scenes from the life of the Russian village for his cot. Forced to live abroad for health reasons, in 1900, the artist began to create an alphabet book for children with letters imaged as stylised Russian folk toys. And these by far are not all examples of her bold use of Russian folk culture, which eloquently testify to the artist's compelling need to pass on to her children the traditions that she herself clearly felt and acquired in Abramtsevo.

The atmosphere of enthusiasm for folk art created in Mamontov’s estate near Moscow, not without the influence of Viktor Vasnetsov, revealed the scope of creative capabilities of other participants in the community. M.V. Vrubel’s best works in painting and ceramics were created during the Abramtsevo period of his work. They include such works as the beautiful canvas of “The Swan Princess” (1900, State Tretyakov Gallery) and numerous majolica sculptures of fairy-tale characters.

Viktor Vasnetsov’s views on the value of Russian folk art were fully shared by his brother Apollinary who also turned to folklore in his own pursuit of the wisdom and origins of beauty. It refers to the artist’s creation of a unique series of paintings on the theme of “Old Moscow”, in which, according to him, he tried to depict “true folk art in the life of the past”[40]. The art critic A.V. Bakushinsky believed that those paintings were unparalleled either in Russian or in world art[41].

The artist succeeded in developing his own imaginative plastic language owing to which the viewer could mentally plunge deep into past centuries and imagine the everyday reality of epochs gone by.

Under the influence of Vasnetsov’s art, the creative work of S.V. Malyutin and A.P. Ryabush- kin matured. The latter is known to have left after his death albums and notebooks under the title of “Materials on the History of Russian Clothes, Architecture, etc.”. Those, in addition to his remarkable paintings based on pre-Petrine Russian history, constituted the main value of his modest property. It also included a small library consisting of historical works by F.G. Solntsev, I.Ye. Zabelin, collections of bylinas by A.F. Gil- ferding, and several old costumes, kokoshniks and scraps of expensive fabrics.

Sergei Malyutin most clearly and fully revealed his versatile talents in Talashkino. He was able to enrich his individual style with the picturesqueness and metaphoricity of Russian craftsmen and, as a result, in his illustrations to fairy tales achieved the same effect as Apolli- nary Vasnetsov did in his “Old Moscow” series, - the viewer involuntarily begins to believe in the their convincing artistic fantasy.

It was most likely not by chance that Sergei Diaghilev, the organiser of the Russian Ballet Seasons in Paris, saw Viktor Vasnetsov’s greatest contribution in creating the national romantic style. In one of his articles, the critic made an emotional summary by saying: “When Vasnetsov walked around the Vatican or in Paris, he would scrutinize with interest the creations of Burne-Jones, but would be unwilling to succumb, on the contrary, it was there, at the moment of bowing to the charms of foreign creativity that he realised the full power of and felt with love the beauty of his pristine nationality”[42].

1. Vasily Dmityevich Polenov. Yelena Dmitryevna Polenova: Chronicle of the Artists Family / Compilation and introductory article by Ye. V. Sakharova. Moscow, 1964. P. 360. In 1885, parting with V. M. Vasnetsov when he left for Kiev for many years to do monumental painting of the Saint Vladimir Cathedral, Ye. D. Polenova, aware of the significance of his absence for Abramtsevo, wrote that “he was one of the members of the circle in whom a distinctive, original character, a very special, unique artistic worldview was expressed more than in others, so every one of us could draw something new. The richness of inner content in this man is striking”.
2. Chaliapin F.I. Literary Heritage. Letters.V.1, Moscow. 1976. P.249.
3. Grabar I.E. Searching for Native Beauty // Grabar I.E. The History of Russian Art. V. 1: Architecture. Pre-Petrine Epoch. Moscow, [1910]. P. 97.
4. Makovsky S. Silhouettes of Russian Artists. Moscow, 1999. P. 164.
5. Stepan Viktorovich Shevyrev (1806-1864) - Russian literary critic, historian of literature, poet, public figure of Slavophilic convictions, professor ordinarius and dean of Moscow University, academician of the St. Petersburg Imperial Academy of Sciences.
6. Timofey Nikolayevich Granovsky (1813-1855) - Russian historian, mediaevalist, founder of the scholarly studies of the West-European Middle Ages and science-based historiography in Russia. Professor ordinarius and dean of the Department of History and Philology of Moscow University. Ideologist of Westernism.
7. Klyuchevsky V.O. Russian History. Full course of lectures in three books. Book 3. Moscow, 1997. P. 554.
8. Thomas Percy (1729-1811) - English folklorist, translator and poet. Publisher of Icelandic heroic poems “Five Pieces of Runic Poetry Translated from the Islandic Language” (1763) and others.
9. Johann Gottfried Herder (1734-1803) - German theologian, historian of culture, one of the founders of Slavonic studies. He was the first to highlight folklore as a means of expression of popular consciousness of a people. He is the author of “The Voices of Peoples in Songs” (1778-1779), a collection of samples of folk poetry of the Germans, the English, the Poles, the Latvians, the Estonians and other peoples.
10. Barthold Georg Niebuhr (1776-1833) - German historian, became known in Russia owing to N.A. Polevoy who dedicated to him his work “The History of the Russian People”, and to T.N. Granovsky.
11. Konstantin Fyodorovich Kalaidovich (1792-1832) - Russian historian, archeographer, philologist; full member of the Moscow Society of History and Russian Antiquities and of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature (1822), corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Imperial Academy of Sciences (1825).
12. Editioning technique is a set of philological practices and rules of preparing a text for a scientific edition. See Ushakov D.N. The Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language. Moscow. 2008.
13. Ivan Vasilyevich Kireyevsky (1806-1856) - Russian religious philosopher, literary critic and publicist, one of the main theoreticians of Slavophilism.
14. Konstantin Dmitryevich Kavelin (1818-1885) - Russian legist, historian, psychologist, sociologist and publicist. Kavelin’s historical views are set out in the following works: “A Look at the Legal Life of Old Russia” (1847), “A Brief Look at Russian History” (1887), “Thoughts and Notes on Russian History” (1866).
15. Azadovsky M.K. The History of Russian Folkloristics, Moscow, Leningrad. 1935. P. 25
16. “Onega Bylinas” written down by A.F. Gilferding in the summer of 1871// Compilation, introductory article and commentary by A.I. Balandina. - Arkhangelsk, 1983. P. 15
17. Bylinas. Compilation, foreword and introduction by V.I. Kalugin. - Moscow, 1986. P. 23
18. Ibid. P.17
19. Vsevolod, Ye.G. Mamontova’s son, wrote in his letter to I.S. Ostroukhov: “Buslayev visited mom once again, examined the whole; she also visited him with Yelena Dmitryevna where he showed them various folios”. From the letter of V. S. Mamontov to I.S. Ostroukhov. Abramtsevo. 3 August, 1887 // Manuscript Dpt, State Tretyakov Gallery. Fund 10. Storage item 3991. Sheet 2.
20. In 1876, A.M Vasnetsov passed a qualifying exam for the position of a people’s teacher and until 1878 taught at a school in the Bystritsa village of Oryol district, Vyatka province.
21. From V.M. Vasnetsov’s letter to V.V. Stasov. [Moscow], 7 October, 1898 // Viktor Mikhailovich Vasnetsov. Letters. Diaries. Memoirs. Opinions of Contemporaries/ Compilation, introductory article and notes by N.A. Yaroslavtseva. - Moscow. 1987. P. 154 (Hereinafter: Letters...)
22. From V.M. Vasnetsov’s letter to A.V. Krivoshein. Moscow. July 1, 1908 // Viktor Vasnetsov. Letters. New materials. Compiled by Lyudmila Korotkina. St. Petersburg, 2004. P. 213 (Hereinafter: Viktor Vasnetsov. Letters. New materials.)
23. Grabar I.E. Introduction to the History of Russian Art // Grabar I.E. The History of Russian Art. (Moscow, 1914, V.1. P.95
24. The viewers’ reaction to V.M. Vasnetsov’s paintings “The Last Battle of Igor Svyatoslavich's Army against the Polovsty” and “The Flying Carpet” (both at the State Tretyakov Gallery) was mentioned in P.M. Tretyakov’s letter to I.N. Kramskoi: “Vasnetsov’s “Battlefield” is not understood by less educated people, educated people say he did not succeed; “The Flying Carpet” is laughed at, i.e. it is ridiculed by both”/See I.N. Kramskoi’s correspondence. In 2 volumes. Moscow, 1953-1954. V.1: I.N. Kramskoi and P.M. Tretyakov. 1869-1887/ Preparation for publication and notes by S.N. Golshtein. Moscow, 1953. P.271.
25. Vasnetsov A.M. The Look of Old Moscow //Collection of works. Moscow in the Oeuvre of A.M. Vasnetsov. Moscow,1986, P.119
26. Paston E.V. Abramtsevo. Art and Life. Moscow, 2003. P. 196.
27. Mark Matveyevich (Mordukh Mat- ysovich) Antokolsky (1840-1902) - Russian sculptor, academician (from 1871), professor of sculpture (from 1880) of the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, participant in the Abramtsevo artistic circle.
28. From V.M. Vasnetsov’s letter to V.V. Stasov. [Moscow], October 3, 1902 // V.M. Vasnetsov. Letters... P. 190.
29. From V.M. Vasnetsov’s letter to I.L. Scheglov-Leontyev. [Moscow], September 8, 1906: “...I wish you knew to what extent this writer [Dostoyevsky - O.A.] is dear to me, in addition to his being a genius. I don’t know how many times I have re-read his great tragedies, the tragedies of the human soul! “The Devils” is a prophetic vision of our current time. Apocalyptic foresight”// V.M. Vasnetsov. Letters. New materials. P. 209
30. Benois A.N. The History of Russian Painting in the 19th Century. Moscow. 1999.P. 389
31. Lobanov V. M. Viktor Vasnetsov in Moscow. Мoscow, 1961. P. 124.
32. It refers to the artists K.A. Savitsky, P.V. Kuznetsov, V.D. Polenov, N.A. Yaroshenko.
33. Atroschenko O.D. Life for Art. Milestones in the Artisitc Biography of I.S. Ostroukhov//Ilya Ostroukhov. Artist, Collector, Museum Expert: Album-catalogue. Moscow. 2020. P. 337.
34. Polenova N.V. Abramtsevo. Moscow, 1922. P. 56-58.
35. Vasily Dmitryevich Polenov. Yelena Dmitryevna Polenova: Chronicle of the Artists’ Family/Compilation and introductory article by Ye.V. Sakharova. Moscow, 1964. P. 543-544.
36. Ye. D. Polenova’s letter to P.D. Antipova. Moscow, 25 October, 1886. Cited from: Vasily Dmitryevich Polenov. Yelena Dmitryevna Polen- ova: Chronicle of the Artists’ Family/ Compilation and introductory article by Ye. V. Sakharova. Moscow, 1964. P. 373.
37. In one of her letters Ye. D. Pole- nova wrote: The idea that I set myself to <...> is very audacious, but terribly tempting. I want in a number of watercolours to express the poetic view of the Russian people on Russian nature, that is, to find out to myself and to others how the Russian landscape influenced and reflected on the Russian folk poetry, epic and lyrical. In short, to express the connection of the soil with the works that grew on it. <...> But then, can words or pen relate it. <...> I will take fairy tales, songs, various poetic beliefs, etc. as subjects for this. I want to capture and express those fictional images, which the imagination of the Russian people lives and feeds on”. // Ye. D. Polenova - to P.D. Antipova. Moscow, 25 October, 1886. Cited from: Vasily Dmitryevich Polenov. Yelena Dmitryevna Polenova: Chronicle of the Artists’ Family/Compila- tion and introductory article by Ye.V. Sakharova. Moscow, 1964. P. 373.
38. M.V. Nesterov to A.A.Turygin, Moscow, October 10, 1915. Cited from: M.V. Nesterov. Selected letters. Leningrad, 1988. P. 262.
39. N. Borok [Polenova N.V.]. M.V Yakunchikova.1905. P.44.
40. Apollinary Vasnetsov. To the centenary of the date of his birth. Works of the Museum of the history and reconstruction of Moscow. Issue VII, 1957. P.147.
41. Goryunova L.B. Neoromantic Traditions in the Painting of A.M. Vasnetsov in Late 19th - Early 20th Century. The theme of wandering and the concept of the world-man relationship// Life style — Art Style. Development of the national-romantic trend of the art nouveau style in European art centres in the second half the 19th - beginning of the 20th century. Russia, England, Germany, Sweden, Finland. Moscow, 2000. P. 446.
42. Diaghilev S.P. To the Exhibition of V.M. Vasnetsov. 1899 //V.M. Vasnetsov. Letters... P.330