Olegs Skarainis in 2008, photo borrowed Site http://www.flickr.com/photos/34674933 @ N00/sets/72157624270181877 /
Who remembers today Olegs Skarainis? The name of this artist from the Soviet era found in textbooks, and sculptures adorn the streets of Riga.
Yet, having been acclaimed for her work on the erection of the Memorial Salaspils, Olegs Skarainis fell into disuse. But the hour of recognition has probably rang again. For when a country wants to shine on the international stage, he turns to his forgotten talent.
Museum of Fine Arts in Latvia from elsewhere to raise the funds necessary for the reproduction of the cat Moufik. This work, exhibited in the famous Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, had earned the reputation of Skarainis best animal of the USSR in the 1980s.
Olegs Skarainis will be 88 years next August. He lives with his wife Irena in a small village Ragaciems, about 90 km from Riga. Their house is an old fisherman's hut overlooking a deserted beach. Everywhere, in their garden, piled castings and sculptures. A Christ bearing the cross calls particular attention, it symbolizes the painful path that every man must go. Olegs Skarainis knows what it is.
is the story of a sculptor who has experienced war, deportation camps, totalitarianism, dispossession.
Gaujers Osvald (Olegs Skarainis is an assumed name) was born August 5, 1923 in the Kaliningrad region.
alone change of identity symbolizes the path of a bold man, and the history of his country. In 1970 the sculptor remade his papers lost during the Second World War, under a false name. He chose Russian first name, Oleg, and the maiden name of his mother Latvian - Skarainis. An act of concealment that should enable it to better integrate into the country, now under Soviet control.
alone change of identity symbolizes the path of a bold man, and the history of his country. In 1970 the sculptor remade his papers lost during the Second World War, under a false name. He chose Russian first name, Oleg, and the maiden name of his mother Latvian - Skarainis. An act of concealment that should enable it to better integrate into the country, now under Soviet control.
Skarainis's father, Latvian rifleman, had settled in Taganrog in Russia after attending the October Revolution.
The family is not spared from Stalin's purges, his father died in prison in 1937, his mother loses her job. Osvald Gaujers family can no longer shed the label of "enemy of the people." When the USSR between
war in 1941, may well leave Gaujers Taganrog, he forbids joining the Red Army. Upon arrival of the Nazi army in the city, he has to work at the mine for the occupant.
ships in Germany, he learned several trades factory, an experience that will allow him to escape from the concentration camp where he found himself in 1943. Mobilized
finally in the Red Army in 1944, he spent a year on the island of Sakhalin and the Japanese front.
The family is not spared from Stalin's purges, his father died in prison in 1937, his mother loses her job. Osvald Gaujers family can no longer shed the label of "enemy of the people." When the USSR between
war in 1941, may well leave Gaujers Taganrog, he forbids joining the Red Army. Upon arrival of the Nazi army in the city, he has to work at the mine for the occupant.
ships in Germany, he learned several trades factory, an experience that will allow him to escape from the concentration camp where he found himself in 1943. Mobilized
finally in the Red Army in 1944, he spent a year on the island of Sakhalin and the Japanese front.
back home in 1947, he returned to high school, which it will incorporate two years later Fine Arts in Riga, and realize a childhood dream of becoming a sculptor.
New obstacles awaiting the future artist. Expelled from the academy after an illness that prevented him from attending class, returns Gaujers the entrance examination in 1950. Best student in his class, he won a scholarship that gave him the opportunity to mix for five years Teodors Zalkalns and other talented sculptors in Latvia.
New obstacles awaiting the future artist. Expelled from the academy after an illness that prevented him from attending class, returns Gaujers the entrance examination in 1950. Best student in his class, he won a scholarship that gave him the opportunity to mix for five years Teodors Zalkalns and other talented sculptors in Latvia.
His first opens the path to success.
In 1958, he participated in large project memorial planned at the site of the former Nazi concentration camp, established in 1941 to around Riga.
"Behind this door earth crying" , can be read on a concrete block at the entrance to the site built in tribute to victims of the camp. This collective structure, produced by architects Gunars Asari Ivars Strautmanis, Ilgerts Ostenbergs, Olegs Zakemennij, and sculptors Levs Bukovski, Janis Zarins and Osvald Gaujers, received one of the most prestigious awards at the time, the Lenin Prize.
Yet this colossal work is not recognized by Latvia current.
In 1958, he participated in large project memorial planned at the site of the former Nazi concentration camp, established in 1941 to around Riga.
"Behind this door earth crying" , can be read on a concrete block at the entrance to the site built in tribute to victims of the camp. This collective structure, produced by architects Gunars Asari Ivars Strautmanis, Ilgerts Ostenbergs, Olegs Zakemennij, and sculptors Levs Bukovski, Janis Zarins and Osvald Gaujers, received one of the most prestigious awards at the time, the Lenin Prize.
Yet this colossal work is not recognized by Latvia current.
Salaspils Memorial
A monument controversial Salaspils Memorial
With Nikita Khrushchev, who leads the Soviet Union between 1953 and 1964, the country has an open policy. It is from this point that in Latvia the weekly Atmoda ("The Awakening").
"Atmoda" is a weekly was published between 1988 and 1992. It was the organ of the Popular Front of Latvia (Latvijas Tautas Fronte) founded October 9, 1988 (well after the Khrushchev era), moderate opposition movement, demanding greater autonomy for Latvia. (Thanks to Gilles Latvia for his commentary, correcting the error that I had left to spend, and copied).
The foreign literature is gradually introduced to Europe a window ajar, even if art is still controlled, though its purpose is not contradicted proletarian, artists Soviet look to the West. The discovery of a lasting Skarainis Picasso.
"Atmoda" is a weekly was published between 1988 and 1992. It was the organ of the Popular Front of Latvia (Latvijas Tautas Fronte) founded October 9, 1988 (well after the Khrushchev era), moderate opposition movement, demanding greater autonomy for Latvia. (Thanks to Gilles Latvia for his commentary, correcting the error that I had left to spend, and copied).
The foreign literature is gradually introduced to Europe a window ajar, even if art is still controlled, though its purpose is not contradicted proletarian, artists Soviet look to the West. The discovery of a lasting Skarainis Picasso.
At that time, a competition was launched to build a memorial to Salaspils. Although the project was initially considered too modernist, a group of young students from the School of Fine Arts in Riga, Osvald Gaujers part, prevails. " Khrushchev wanted a simple monument" , remembers the sculptor.
All sculptures gigantic concrete symbol of human suffering and lives on the day.
In the forest of Salaspils, a score kilometers from Riga, six sculptures of men and women are built on the site of the former concentration camp. Each statue represents a symbol: the mother, humiliation, solidarity, insubordination, the oath, the opposition. One of them bears the face of Gaujers, himself a survivor of a concentration camp.
In the 1990s, when Latvia regained its independence, it was matter of shaving the Memorial, seen as a Soviet monument. Since then, the monument has been the subject of many controversial policies on national soil, but also between Latvia and Russia. The name, the number of victims, the collaboration of Latvians in the management of the camp: so many questions that were and still are the causes of discord, all issues that have sometimes exceeded the usual opposition between Latvians and Russians on historical issues and memory. True to the enthusiasm which animated forty years ago, while adhering to key developments that have marked his country wants Olegs Skarainis put the final touches to the memorial by adding to a symbol consisting of the Ecumenical Orthodox cross, catholic, and the Star of David. By then, he celebrates both the memory of Russian and Latvian political prisoners, and deported Jews who perished in this camp.
Olegs Skarainis remains particularly attached to this work, which having been made early in his career, nevertheless his greatest achievement. If he shows no nostalgia for the Soviet regime - quite the contrary - the artist's regrets his youth, a time when we dared to undertake " big jobs, where it was possible to show" . A melancholy well understandable when one knows the wilderness of Skarainis. Alas, he is not alone. Many artists and scholars of Latvia who have suffered the same fate: noticed and admired in the Soviet era, they are marginalized in Latvia today.
Written by Dana and Sara Al-Jurgelevica Matary
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