Russian avant-garde

The Russian avant-garde was a large, influential wave of avant-garde modern art that flourished in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, approximately from 1890 to 1930—although some have placed its beginning as early as 1850 and its end as late as 1960. The term covers many separate, but inextricably related, art movements that flourished at the time; including Suprematism, Constructivism, Russian Futurism, Cubo-Futurism, Zaum, Imaginism, and Neo-primitivism. In Ukraine, many of the artists who were born, grew up or were active in what is now Belarus and Ukraine (including Kazimir Malevich, Aleksandra Ekster, Vladimir Tatlin, David Burliuk, Alexander Archipenko), are also classified in the Ukrainian avant-garde.

The Russian avant-garde reached its creative and popular height in the period between the Russian Revolution of 1917 and 1932, at which point the ideas of the avant-garde clashed with the newly emerged state-sponsored direction of Socialist Realism.

Artists and designers
Notable figures from this era include: • Alexander Archipenko

• Vladimir Baranoff-Rossine

• Alexander Bogomazov

• David Burliuk

• Vladimir Burliuk

• Marc Chagall

• Ilya Chashnik

• Aleksandra Ekster

• Robert Falk

• Moisey Feigin

• Pavel Filonov

• Artur Fonvizin

• Naum Gabo

• Nina Genke-Meller

• Natalia Goncharova

• Elena Guro

• Vasily Kandinsky

• Lazar Khidekel

• Ivan Kliun

• Gustav Klutsis

• Pyotr Konchalovsky

• Eugène Konopatzky

• Sergei Arksentevich Kolyada

• Alexander Kuprin

• Mikhail Larionov

• Aristarkh Lentulov

• El Lissitzky

• Kazimir Malevich

• Paul Mansouroff

• Ilya Mashkov

• Mikhail Matyushin

• Vadim Meller

• Adolf Milman

• Solomon Nikritin

• Alexander Osmerkin

• Max Penson

• Liubov Popova

• Ivan Puni

• Kliment Red'ko

• Alexei Remizov

• Alexander Rodchenko

• Olga Rozanova

• Léopold Survage

• Varvara Stepanova

• Georgii and Vladimir Stenberg

• Vladimir Tatlin

• Nadezhda Udaltsova

• Vasiliy Yermilov

• Ilya Zdanevich

• Alexandr Zhdanov

Journals

 * LEF
 * Mir iskusstva

Filmmakers
• Grigori Aleksandrov

• Boris Barnet

• Alexander Dovzhenko

• Sergei Eisenstein

• Lev Kuleshov

• Yakov Protazanov

• Vsevolod Pudovkin

• Dziga Vertov

Writers
• Isaac Babel

• Andrei Bely

• Vladimir Burliuk

• David Burliuk

• Konstantin Fofanov

• Elena Guro

• Velimir Khlebnikov

• Daniil Kharms

• Aleksei Kruchenykh

• Mirra Lokhvitskaya

• Vladimir Mayakovsky

• Igor Severyanin

• Viktor Shklovsky

• Sergei Tretyakov

• Marina Tsvetaeva

• Sergei Yesenin

• Ilya Zdanevich

Theatre directors
• Vsevolod Meyerhold

• Nikolai Evreinov

• Yevgeny Vakhtangov

• Sergei Eisenstein

Architects
• Yakov Chernikhov

• Moisei Ginzburg

• Ilya Golosov

• Ivan Leonidov

• Konstantin Melnikov

• Vladimir Shukhov

• Alexander Vesnin

Preserving Russian avant-garde architecture has become a real concern for historians, politicians and architects. In 2007, MoMA in New York City, devoted an exhibition to Soviet avant-garde architecture in the postrevolutionary period, featuring photographs by Richard Pare.

Composers
• Samuil Feinberg

• Arthur Lourié

• Mikhail Matyushin

• Nikolai Medtner

• Alexander Mossolov

• Nikolai Myaskovsky

• Nikolai Obukhov

• Gavriil Popov

• Sergei Prokofiev

• Nikolai Roslavets

• Leonid Sabaneyev

• Alexander Scriabin

• Vissarion Shebalin

• Dmitri Shostakovich

Many Russian composers that were interested in avant-garde music became members of the Association for Contemporary Music which was headed by Roslavets.