Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Modern Approach in Humanities.
Year: 2018 | Page No:57
DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/6mah.2018.11.27
“Russian threat” to the Catholic Austrian society: constructing the Austrian concept of the enemy in the 1880s. The case of Vasili Vereshchagin
Lydia Kotlyar
ABSTRACT:
Vereschagin – a Russian painter with high international reputation. Among the paintings were two pieces w p p y w y E R ’ R p w dangerous for Catholic faith. The further heated discussion in the press offered their opinions on what made the Russian artist convey the Biblical narrative in the way he did. The p w R T , an image of a Russian threat to the Catholic society of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was constructed through Vereshchagin’ y w w R in the first place).
The following research poses questions such as: how was the R even in the context of its absence? How did this debate align with the bipolar antagonism between the West and the East in the relations between the Russian and the AustroH p ? T w R ’ p w p y picture of viewing an artist, simply on the basis of his nationality, a threat?The research had been conducted with archival research in Russian State Historical Archive and State Archive of the Russian Federation. A brief summary of the results can state, that R p w p v cultural life of Vienna and was integrated into the discourse of Viennese own religious (therefore, state) stability. The portrayal of the policies of the Russian Empire on the imperial boarder towards the Catholic p p p y p j R w A trian intellectual society. The appeal of Russianness towards the Slavic population of the Austro-Hungarian Empire also serv R Orthodox Christianity. All of these discourses came to life in the polemics around the paintings by Vereschagin.
Keywords: Austro-Hungarian Empire, Russian Empire, Russian threat, Vershchagin, Catholic, Orthodox, Vienna, nationalism, scandal.