{"id":1071,"date":"2020-04-22T16:43:44","date_gmt":"2020-04-22T16:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/?page_id=1071"},"modified":"2021-01-07T12:55:15","modified_gmt":"2021-01-07T12:55:15","slug":"victor-ryabinin-konigsberg-artist-historian","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/expatkaliningrad.com\/ru\/victor-ryabinin-konigsberg-artist-historian\/","title":{"rendered":"Victor Ryabinin K\u00f6nigsberg Artist-Historian"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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An artist who can hear angels speak<\/strong>
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A biographical essay on the life, ‘nostalgic aesthetics’ and philosophy of Victor Ryabinin<\/em> of K\u00f6nigsberg, by Boris Nisnevich<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

“When I wrote the draft to this article, I wrote that I believe there is no equal to him in Kaliningrad \u2014 I still believe he has no equal.” ~ [Boris Nisnevich]<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Translated by Olga Korosteleva-Hart
Edited by Mick Hart<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Published: 22 April 2020 ~ the anniversary of K\u00f6nigsberg philosopher Immanuel Kant’s birthday<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor \u2013 a child of ruins<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thinking about life, we ask ourselves questions: \u2018Why do we come to this world?\u2019 or \u2018What if I had not been born?\u2019 For an artist the answer to those questions is obvious \u2013 I am here to create. To be or not to be is decided by the Creator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first year of Victor Ryabinin\u2019s life could have been his last. There was an epidemic in K\u00f6nigsberg which wiped out hundreds of children, both German and Russian. The military doctor who came to visit the Ryabinin family broke Victor\u2019s parents\u2019 heart when he delivered the verdict that there was nothing to be done to help their child. \u201cA day, perhaps two,\u201d he said, \u201cand the child will die.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Victor\u2019s German nanny remembered that in the city there remained a German doctor \u2014 an epidemiologist \u2014 who was considered to be a highly successful practitioner before the war. Victor\u2019s parents paid him a visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWasser! Nur Wasser trinken<\/em>!\u201d he said, on examining the ill child. Vitya, as his parents called Victor, was given lots of water and the disease subsided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I come from K\u00f6nigsberg<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In his adult life, having become a famous artist, Ryabinin would call one of his exhibitions: I come from K\u00f6nigsberg<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

K\u00f6nigsberg, in which Victor was born, was a city of suffering, ruins and ashes. Weapons and ammunition left over from the war caused unexpected explosions; they were available to anyone, and there were frequent shootings in the streets and killing of Soviet patrols. In the fallen fortress, now and then hidden snipers opened fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But ordinary Germans and Russians were already beginning to overcome their burning hatred for each other, and compassion was not unheard of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor experienced this transition first-hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His father \u2013 an officer who built his military career over time \u2014 took part in the Siege of K\u00f6nigsberg. He considered the city to be a trophy, but one that must be returned to normal life as soon as possible after the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His mother, who had experienced forced labour in Germany, had her own vision of Germans, who were, unlike the war stereotypes, all different and not all of them cruel and heartless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagining Ryabinin\u2019s childhood against the backdrop of the ruined city, I like to think of him as a \u2018child of the ruins\u2019 and K\u00f6nigsberg\u2019s ruins his \u2018educators\u2019. But I think Victor\u2019s parents would not have liked this metaphor. They raised him to be a true Russian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His father wanted him to follow his own example and become a devoted serviceman in the Red Army. His father\u2019s military days had begun in the Far East on the Kalinin Front, where he took part in fierce battles. As a boy, Vitya was brought up listening to war stories that were told at the table in the company of his father\u2019s fellow soldiers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His mother told him about his grandfather, whom he had never seen in his lifetime \u2014 a fighter of the Old Man Bogun\u2019s brigade, which was part of the civil war hero\u2019s division of Shchors. The war images came to life in his parents\u2019 stories, depicting both life at the front and civilian life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He learnt about the dramatic days of his mother\u2019s survival, who, in 1942, had been subjected to forced labour in Germany. First, she worked at a tachometer factory and then at a printing house in D\u00fcsseldorf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor himself referred to his childhood as a \u2018double education\u2019 and described it like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe fact that I grew up as a cheerful pessimist is due to my double education: I was brought up on Russian folk tales and Gothic architecture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe fact that I grew up as a cheerful pessimist is due to my double education: I was brought up on Russian folk tales and Gothic architecture.\u201d<\/p>Victor Ryabinin K\u00f6nigsberg Artist-Historian<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The Russian way of life with its traditions, manifestations, and sometimes not the best cultural features, came to a Prussian city. A Soviet way of life was established.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it was in this milieu that his desire to draw emerged. It was difficult, because there was no paper. He painted on pieces of plywood, scraps of wallpaper, a tile stove, where his drawing of an airplane made with a chemical pencil survived for a long time in his childhood home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor Ryabinin K\u00f6nigsberg Artist-Historian<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

At school, among other subjects, he had the opportunity to study German, and he took it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is nothing surprising about Victor\u2019s interest in everything German. He revealed this himself in a diary page entitled \u2018Ten things that shocked me during my first years of life in K\u00f6nigsberg\u2019:<\/p>\n\n\n\n