The ‘First Exhibition of Russian Art’ in Berlin: The Transnational Origins of Bolshevik Cultural Diplomacy, 1921–1922

Abstract

The emergence of a Soviet cultural diplomacy in the 1920s was hardly predictable. Bolsheviks’ propaganda for ‘world revolution’ reduced the image of Soviet Russia to one of Leninist-proletarian victory, while the rejection of diplomatic tradition and a distrust of artists and intellectuals precluded any commitment to cultural action abroad. This article explores how, when and why a Soviet cultural diplomacy developed. It focuses on two episodes related to the famine of 1921, including, based on new archival evidence, the First Exhibition of Russian Art in Berlin in October 1922. The exhibition's spectacular success paved the way for Soviet cultural diplomacy that moved away from overtly communist propaganda in order to address Western avant-garde literary and artistic milieus.