UNIT 5
Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire
Ilya Yefimovich Repin was a leading Russian painter and sculptor of the Peredvizhniki artistic school. An important part of his work is dedicated to his native country, Ukraine. His realistic works often expressed great psychological depth and exposed the tensions within the existing social order. Beginning in the late 1920s, detailed works on him were published in the Soviet Union, where Repin cult developed about a decade later, and where he was held up as a model "progressive" and "realist" to be imitated by "Socialist Realist" artists in the USSR.
He painted a series of pictures dealing with the theme of the Russian revolutionary movement, mixing contrasting psychological moods and Russian and Ukrainian national motifs. On his pictures Repin also displayed various social classes and the tensions among them set within the context of a traditional religious practice and united by a slow but relentless forward movement.
One of Repin's most complex paintings, Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire occupied many years of his life. He conceived this painting as a study in laughter, but also believed that it involved the ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity; in short, Cossack republicanism, in this particular case, Ukrainian Cossack republicanism. Begun in the late 1870s, it was only completed in 1891, and, ironically, was immediately purchased by the Tsar. The Tsar paid 35,000 rubles for the painting, an enormous amount for that time.
His painting reflects Repin’s struggle for people and believe in their happy future and shows the artist’s warm love for the country. The people are depicted with their national peculiarities including clothes, hairstyle and background, it’s easy to see that they are full of enormous resources of the strength and confidently believe in their future.
During his maturity, Repin painted many of his most celebrated compatriots, including the novelist Leo Tolstoy, the scientist Dmitri Mendeleev, the imperial official Pobedonostsev, the composer Mussorgsky, the philanthropist Pavel Tretyakov, and the Ukrainian poet and painter, Taras Shevchenko.