Diary of the Commune

“Diary of the Commune” (or "Journal of the Commune) is a witness of 1925.It was written by artists and sculptors of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AKhR), the advanced artistic association in the USSR, whose main task was the creation of a new art that would reflect the new Soviet reality. In its own way, the collective diary embodied this purpose and became a kind of “mirror” of the era, the chronicle of the commune’s formation, development and the constantly occurring exchange of opinions, experiences, and ideas.Some authors of the diary studied at the VHUTEIN (Higher Art and Technical Institute, in which was transformed in 1922 the Academy of Arts), and their teacher was Kuzma Sergeevich Petrov-Vodkin.

This was a new world, a map full of white spots that needed to be filled; the state and society were on a large scale transformed with new origins and principles, and in this lava of changing a new type of person arose and grew stronger.What kind of person is it? How should he develop himself and for which tasks? How is he included in the picture of the world, what is his attitude to the world, to others, to himself?

New generation raises such questions; and in a collective diary, interwoven with interpersonal relationships and the fate of individual people, these strict questioning sounds sharp and clear.Young members of the commune (based on the text of the diary, the commune itself existed more than one year) talk about the essence and embodiment of the equality of men and women, about the problem of shame and modesty, the admissibility of swear words and the understanding of emancipation, about opportunities of the cooperation to creating ideal conditions for live and free creative work.The question of the necessity of the commune itself also arises: is it worthwhile to build communism from small cells, or is it worth starting - vice versa - by merging with a large mass? What is the commune itself - is it a way of life or just an experiment?..

Each of the authors has a vivid character.The chairperson of the commune - Alexeyeva, she actively organized the commune as a “society of equals”; “old communard”Podorozhny; an enemy of discipline and a friend of the free spirit of creativity Tarnyagin; determined in her judgments Aladjalova.Through their brisk dialogue, we get an insight into a personal dimension of the history. 

By reading the lines and pages of the diary, by following the conversation of its authors and watching the development of a lively conversation,we see the very creation of the history, in its embodiment in feelings, perception, in the flow of life itself–with all the living intonations, with an appeal to another person, with the expectation of an answer.We get a unique opportunity to become attentive listeners, to find in the polyphony of this diary an unexpected, albeit quiet, uniting motive, and to feel the taste and the mood of the era.

The diary war prepared for publication by Rezvukhina Anna, who also wrote the foreword.

We kept original orthography, punctuation, abbreviation of the diary’s authors.