Why Repin's son took his own life, and his grandson was shot for his dream of becoming an artist

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

There is such a concept: “in children is our continuation” and, of course, every parent wants it, this continuation, to be worthy and far-reaching. About how the fate of the heirs developed master of Russian painting Ilya Repin, namely, the only son of Yuri, who became an artist, and one of the grandchildren, who only dreamed of becoming one all his short life, further in the review.

The son of Ilya Repin, Yuri followed in his father's footsteps, becoming an artist, and if he had a stronger character, he would have had a good future as a painter. However, it happened, how it happened … At that time, different conclusions could be found in the press about this, and here is one of them:. However, the truth, as a rule, always lies somewhere in the middle …

The grandson of the famous grandfather, Diy Repin, was much more strong-willed and purposeful, but at the age of 28, for the sake of his dream of becoming an artist, he fell a victim, falling into the merciless meat grinder of Stalin's repressions of the 30s.

How Ilya Repin's family ended up in Finland after the revolution

And what is curious, the fate of all the children and grandchildren of the Russian master of painting Ilya Repin is not connected with Russia, but with Finland … kilometers from the Finnish-Russian border. The estate built there will be called "Penaty", and next to it will be erected a house for the son of Yuri and his family, which will be called "Wigwam".

However, after the revolutionary events in Russia and Finland's proclamation of its independence, the Repins estate in Kuokkala (now Repino), together with all its inhabitants, found themselves on the territory of a foreign country. The border was closed, and although formally the Repins were not considered emigrants, they actually turned out to be renegades. The life of the population of this village turned into a test, and the Repin family was cut off from everything that connected it with Russia.

And so that it would not occur to her father to move to Russia, the eldest daughter Vera told him horrifying stories. Namely, that his

A shocked artist in a local church ordered a memorial service for the innocent victims. And when I learned from the newspapers that all this was not true, as if nothing had happened, he defended a prayer service for the health of fellow artists. And of course, he never left his estate. Rumor has it that once a messenger arrived at the artist's estate with a letter from the Soviet government, in which Repin was offered to move to Leningrad, a good pension, an apartment and all the honors were promised. To which Ilya Efimovich, not without a sense of his own dignity, replied: Although, until his death, the artist and his family lived in poverty, interrupting the sale of their canvases for a pittance.

A talented son in the shadow of his father or a crazy person and mediocrity

Yuri (Georgy) Ilyich Repin was born in the early spring of 1877 in his father's homeland - in the city of Chuguev, in Ukraine, where the artist and his family came to live after an overseas business trip. At baptism, the child was given a Greek name - George, in everyday life they called him Yuri. The boy was seriously ill in childhood, which greatly affected his character, as well as his studies - it was given to him with great difficulty, and he never finished school.

And then it so happened that in 1887 Ilya Efimovich divorced his first wife, the mother of his four children. As a result, the children were divided between the spouses: the two eldest daughters began to live with their father, and the 10-year-old son and younger daughter - with their mother. However, 6 years later, Repin takes his son Yuri to him. Together they travel a lot to the countries of Western Europe. It was there that Repin Jr. became interested in art and took up painting.

Upon his return to Russia in 1899, he entered the art school at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts as a volunteer and at the same time graduated from art and pedagogical courses, where he learned the wisdom of painting in the battle painting class of the famous battle artist F. A. Rubo.

Passionately falling in love and marrying the adopted daughter of their servants, Praskovya Andreeva, in 1905, Yuri dropped out of school and never received the title of a class artist. A year later, a son, Gai (Georgy), was born in a young family, and a year later, a second, Diy (Dmitry). The boys were named after the ancient patricians of the Roman Empire. However, these were quiet, modest young men and, apart from sonorous names, they had nothing in common with their powerful namesakes. In 1907, Yuri and his family settled on a plot with a house allocated by his father in the village of Kuokkala.

It should be noted that in the behavior of Yuri from an early age, many noticed shocking oddities behind him. He often plunged into the shock of those around him with his extravagant antics. This affected the attacks of mental illness, to which, alas, all the children of Repin Sr. were subject to one degree or another.

Ilya Efimovich himself tried not to notice this, and believed that all the troubles of his son from the fact that he got married, but there was nothing to do - the father had to come to terms with the choice of his son.

Moreover, in the creative field, the offspring were doing quite successfully. Since 1903, Yuri, along with his famous father, exhibited at the exhibitions of the Union of Russian Artists and the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions. Repin Jr. had a good command of the impressionistic style, painted portraits, paintings on the gospel, historical and battle scenes. In 1910, at an international exhibition in Munich, he was awarded the II gold medal, and in 1913 - the II prize for historical painting from the Society for the Encouragement of Artists, in 1915 - the Prize for Historical Painting of the Society. A. Kuindzhi. And in 1914, Yuri Repin decided to engage in teaching activities, opening a private children's drawing school in Kuokkala.

And since the 1920s, a series of failures and personal misfortunes literally fell on Yuri, and life slowly went downhill. First his wife died, then his father, and then one of his sisters. These losses of loved ones crippled, first of all, the psychological health of Yuri Ilyich, he became unsociable, untidy, fell into mysticism. In the fall of 1939, before the start of the Soviet-Finnish war, the evacuation of the population from the border area began and Yuri, along with his sister Vera, were taken to the suburbs of Helsinki, and after World War II they moved to the capital itself.

Repin Jr., in distress, continued to paint, painted icons and portraits to order. And after the death of his sister, Yuri began to show more and more a tendency to mental disorder, he began to run away from home, wandered, ate garbage, spending the night in the Salvation Army shelter. Having finally moved in his mind, in 1954, Yuri Repin committed suicide by jumping out of the window of a shelter ….

Summing up the life and creative path of Repin Jr., I would nevertheless like to note that if Yuri Ilyich were not the son of his famous father, who knows, maybe his creative fate, however, like life itself, could have developed in a completely different way and he would become a famous and successful artist. But, as happens very often, the burden of responsibility imposed by the famous surname turned out to be unbearable for Yuri. Even the best of his works could not be compared with the masterpieces of Repin Sr. And they, as if on evil, were constantly compared and dismissed by evil tongues on the theme of nature, which rests on the children of geniuses.

But, be that as it may, the paintings of Repin Jr. are currently kept in the Tretyakov Gallery, in the house-museum of I. E. Repin in "Penates", the National Gallery in Prague, in many private collections.

The unfulfilled dream of the grandson of a brilliant grandfather

The fate of the sons of Yuri Ilyich was as follows: the eldest son Gai, after graduating from a real school, went to study at the Prague Civil Engineering School, later he lived in the Czech Republic and Germany. Smaller - Diy, having received a Nansen passport, recruited a cabin boy and sailed for several years on Swedish ships. It was the sea that hardened the character of the young man, it was there that he went through the school of survival, and the hard work of the sailor transformed the domestic boy into a strong, fearless, independent man.

In 1929, having stepped off the ship, due to the illness of his mother, Diu had to endure her death, both grandfather and aunt. After their departure, it became not only empty in the "Penates" themselves, but also in the soul of a 27-year-old young man. Times were not easy and he was unable to find a job. There was only a spark of hope that his life could still change dramatically if he again turned to his dream of becoming an artist.

Brought up in a creative environment, from an early age, Diy absorbed that miraculous atmosphere, and the thought of mastering the profession of an artist came to the young man from time to time. And now she became the idea of his whole life. And in the early 30s, Diy decides to enter the Leningrad Institute of Proletarian Fine Arts (formerly the Academy of Arts). However, in 1932, having applied to the Soviet consulate for a visa, Diy was refused. Then the father, deciding to support his son, asked for help from an old acquaintance of the family who lived in Paris to assist in entering the Paris Academy of Arts. Also, nothing came of it …

Without losing faith and hope, and still dreaming of an artistic education, Diy took a big risk: he decides to illegally cross the Finnish-Soviet border and, having reached Leningrad, turn to his grandfather's former comrades for help. Diy pinned great hopes on the artist I. I. Brodsky, who was a student of his grandfather and classmate of his father. At that time he taught painting, and his classroom was located in the former workshop of Ilya Efimovich.

To do this, it was only necessary to cross the border river 7 meters wide. And how could this become an obstacle to achieving the cherished dream for a sailor who has been on a round-the-world voyage more than once. As a child, he played with local children hundreds of times and crossed a narrow rivulet - in winter on skis, in summer - by swimming.

On February 28, 1935, the fearless grandson of Ilya Repin crossed the border of the USSR, but he was immediately detained and arrested. During interrogations, the young man, sincerely believing in the common sense of the NKVD workers, said that "he wants to live, study and work in Leningrad." But, as it turned out, everything was not so simple in his native land. He, a romantic dreamer, was instantly turned into "a member of an underground anti-Soviet terrorist organization sent to the USSR with the task of carrying out terrorist attacks against the top leaders of the USSR." And in the summer of 1935, a military tribunal sentenced Diya Repin to be shot. The verdict was carried out on August 6, 1935, during the celebration of the 91st anniversary of the birth of Ilya Efimovich Repin. And 56 years later, Diy Yuryevich Repin was fully rehabilitated due to the lack of corpus delicti.

And then Diy, of course, did not admit his guilt … And what was it, his fault? … The fact that he wanted to live in the land of his ancestors, to get the education he dreamed of so much, to work … But in the end he paid for his dream with his life.

Well, what can you say, life is truly amazing, making its own adjustments to the fate of people, both great and ordinary, unremarkable.

Read about the brilliant unattainable master of painting Ilya Repin, whose masterpiece canvases were included in the golden fund of Russian culture, read in the review: Little-known facts about Repin's painting "The Cossacks write a letter to the Turkish Sultan."