Scholarship for Master's Students — Sofia Dubrovskaya

The research focuses on analyzing Soviet critical texts dedicated to the work of Solomon Yudovin. Solomon (Shloyme-Zanvl) Borisovich Yudovin (1892–1954) was a graphic artist and researcher of Jewish folk art who had a keen sense of the shifting historical ground beneath his feet. In his graphic works, he emphasized the documentary quality of the depicted subjects, and the key theme of his work in the 1920s–1930s was the old shtetl way of life. Yudovin also sought to document and revitalize Jewish folk motifs and ornamentation; this interest found artistic expression in the publication of the graphic album "Yidishe folks-ornament (Jewish Folk Ornament)" (1920).

However, first due to state atheism and later due to the Soviet antisemitic campaign, a significant part of Yudovin's biography related to Jewish culture became shrouded in euphemisms or was simply omitted as a "figure of silence." Studying the main monographs while drawing on additional texts and materials will not only help fill substantial gaps in the artist's creative biography but also, using Yudovin as a case study, illustrate how historical circumstances changed the ways of discussing a Jewish artist and, more broadly, how Soviet rhetoric about Jewish culture evolved from the 1920s to the 1960s. Furthermore, the chosen research angle will allow for important commentary on the critics themselves, whose texts merit additional analysis — particularly those of Jeremiah Ioffe, Erich Hollerbach, Grigory Sorokin (Hirsch Sorkin), etc.

The research was carried out with the financial support of A. Klyachin.