Kunt Ernő szerk.: Kép-hagyomány – Nép-hagyomány (Miskolc, 1990)

I. RÉSZTANULMÁNYOK - Tatiana Voronina: A lubok helye és szerepe az orosz népi kultúra rendszerében a 19. század 20-as és 60-as évei között

PLACE AND FUNCTION OF „LUBOK" IN THE SYSTEM OF RUSSIAN FOLK CULTURE (2s-6s of the 19th century) TATIANA VORONINA Popular prints, or lubok. as a specific type of graphic art became widespread in Russia in the middle of 17th century to continue to the end of 19th century. They frequently attracted the attention of various experts; they were studied from various points of view: literature, history, everyday style, culture, economy, sociology, etc. For a long time the lubok became a favourite topic for art historians above all as a species of folk art. This one-sided perception of visual culture went so far as to turn the lubok into a synonym of ..Russian folk picture".' Unlike other kinds of enquiery, the etnographic study of this representation of material shows that the term „lubok" does not always, and in particular not in the 19th century, include the idea of „folk"; this term is normally interpreted as implying the immediate and individual output of folk masters, in other words, „peasant" art. To a considerable extent it was a drawing intended for ordinary people and produced by urban craftsmen and aimed downwards in accordance with cultural requirements of this or that social stratum. In certain years it acquired a definite ideological tinge and was diffused under the banner of ..official nationality". Therefore, these popular prints should be regarded in a much wider sense - as part of professional - mass production actively interacting with poetic folklore, professional and peasant art, with lubok literature, etc. Lubok painters were striving to take into consideration the traditions as well as demands of various social groups. To a considerable extent we can reconstruct the taste and subject preferences of the burghers, merchants, peasants and other strata from these prints. It seems impossible to encompass all the problems arising from the peculiarities of lubok designs in the course of their history within the limits of one paper. Therefore we shall restrict ourselves to definite chronological limits and consider the idiosyncrasies of the popular prints which appeared in the urban and rural milieux from the 2s to the 6s. On the one hand, this is justified by the fact that this period was least studied and was ignored by contemporaries. The well known historian of Russian art D. A. Rovinsky limited the scope of his multi-volume edition by including only prints appearing upto 1839. He considered the subsequent output to be devoid of interest.

2 During his time the view was widely held that „at the present level of development purified by taste and well trained painting, the so-called SuzdaFs is decidedly without value and constitutes a comic aspect of art".

3 On the other hand, the catalogue of topics of the prints of that period differs considerably both from the previous period and the 7s and 8s, and therefore, can be seen as transitional. Many researchers investigating the topics of lubok prints in the 19th century invoked the censorship decrees and exaggerated their role by dividing the lubok into non-censorshiped ones upto 1828 or 1839, and censored ones subsequently. The analysis of archive materials and the data from censorship enable us to say that the truth about