RUSŲ DAILININKAI XIX AMŽIAUS LIETUVOJE
RUSSIAN ARTISTS IN LITHUANIA IN THE 19TH CENTURY

Summary/Abstract: In the 19th century, Lithuania was home to several different nationalities. Alongside with Lithuanians, Poles, and Jews, it had quite a large Russian population, which considerably increased in the second half of the 19th century following the suppression of the national uprising. Similarly diverse was the artistic society. It is likely that there were no Russian artists in Lithuania in the early 19th century, except for a few students of the Russian nationality who studied art at Vilnius University under Jan Rustem. In the mid–19th century, Vilnius and ist environs were a place where the landscape-painter Vasilij Sadovnikov (1800–1879), already a famous artist, worked. He came to Lithuania invited by the Wittgensteins, a noble family, and was staying at their manor in Verkiai. Sadovnikov produced richly coloured watercolours of the interiors of the Verkiai manor, views of streets and environs of Vilnius, and scenes from the activities of clergy. The situation changed – it may be said, radically – in the second half of the 19th century, when the activity of local artists was practically excluded from the official public life of the city. This was a result of the tsarist cultural and educational policies, which aimed at the Russification of the country. After banning people of non-Russian nationalities from holding civil service jobs, a number of educators, including art and draughtsmanship teachers, came to Lithuania from Russia. Ivan Trutnev (1827–1912) became the most prominent representative of the Russian art. In 1866, he was invited to Vilnius to establish a state-sponsored school of drawing. For several decades, this school and its headmaster served as the centre around which the official and public life in Lithuania was concentrated: art exhibitions were held in its premises; an attempt was made to establish a museum. The Russian artists Ivan Pelevin, Mikhail Ceidler and several others who were staying in Lithuania and were not involved in the educational activities tried to join the public artistic life by establishing the Society of Permanent Exhibition of Artworks in Vilnius, whose aim was to display the works of artists living in Vilnius and to arrange retrospective exhibitions.

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