Icons – a symbol of Russian identity between tradition, religion and politics

Interview with Slavic scholar Irina Wutsdorff and Daniela Amodio

Icons have had a prominent position in Russian culture since the 19th century: originally cultic pictorial works used in Orthodox liturgy, they were elevated to symbols of Russia’s unique tradition by the so-called Slavophiles, followers of a 19th-century Russian philosophical-political ideology that emphasised Russia’s independence from Western Europe. The reason for this was that icons differ from the pictorial tradition of Western Europe and the Western church. The research project “Between religious tradition and aesthetic innovation: The a-mimetic nature of icons in 19th- and 20th-century Russian art and literature” sees researchers at the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” investigate the tension surrounding references to the icon tradition. A conversation with Slavic scholar and project leader Irina Wutsdorff and Doctoral student Daniela Amodio.

Your project focuses on references to traditional icon painting in Russian art and literature of the 19th and 20th centuries. What exactly are you investigating?

Irina Wutsdorff: Icons are cultic and holy images that were and are venerated predominantly in the Eastern churches. Our project is investigating how the concepts and figures of thought underlying these pictorial representations belonging to the religious sphere were taken up and transformed in art and literature in Russia at the end of the 19th century. What enables the transfer between the religious and the aesthetic? Here, engaging with icons – and this is a fundamental claim of the project – always also concerns the perception of art and its status in relation to existing or desired reality. Icons thus reveal a worldview, one that is certainly also political in nature.

Since the 19th century, Slavophiles have regarded icons as a symbol of an independent Russian tradition. How exactly does this tradition differ from the pictorial tradition of Western Europe and the Western church?

Irina Wutsdorff: The concept of the icon is roughly as follows: when looking at the icon, the viewer should gain a glimpse of the transcendent, the divine. This is why the icon is sometimes referred to as a “window to the beyond”. Unlike what we know from Western European art since the Renaissance, there is no central perspective that draws the viewer into the picture. Instead, there is what is called “reverse perspective”, which sees the perspective go towards the viewer. Another feature is the lighting: unlike in Western European painting, there is no recognisable light source outside the image; instead, the icon itself gives off its own light – the divine light that shines on the viewer. This is why we often see a golden background, which symbolises precisely that.

Daniela Amodio: Unlike in Western European art, there is in the icon tradition no individual artist who paints icons. The idea is that the same image of sacred origin is, as is said of icons, “written” over and over again – even if the ways of depicting fixed image types, such as the Mother of God (Russian: Umilenie) turning towards the Christ Child with emotion, have changed considerably over time. In the Russian context, the image that is understood as the original is the Vladimir Mother of God.

How do icons find their way into art and literature?

Irina Wutsdorff: There are many references to icon painting in 19th-century literature, for example in Dostojevsky’s novel “The Idiot”, where the villain Rogozhin has a picture of Holbein’s “The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb” hanging above the door frame. This is essentially an anti-icon because, using deep perspective, it shows Christ in his absolute physicality, lying down and marked by suffering. This contrasts with the classical icon, where Christ appears upright, in all his glory with a halo, in a flat representation with a golden background. In Nikolai Gogol’s short story “The Portrait”, there is a painter who paints the devil – this is also a kind of anti-icon. These are examples in literature where reference to icons continues the “traditional”.

Icons also found their way into avant-garde art at the beginning of the 20th century, a well-known example being Malevich’s “Black Square”, which he himself described as “the icon of his time”. Even though it is only a black surface, Malevich’s painting style very deliberately references the two-dimensionality of icon art, taking its anti-mimeticism to the extreme. Also, when Malevich first presented this work in an exhibition, he hung it in the corner, where usually was hung the house icon before which people traditionally prayed. This was a deliberate provocation. I think he wanted to give the same transformative, almost transcending, power to art as to religion. And this tension between tradition and innovation is central to our project.

In which other media do icons have an impact?

Irina Wutsdorff: As part of the project, Daniela Amodio is writing her doctoral thesis on transformations of the icon tradition in early Soviet film. On the one hand, icons here are symbols of the religion that must be overcome, for example when icons are shown being destroyed or carried out of churches. On the other, the films use the Russian Orthodox pictorial tradition to glorify Soviet heroes, drawing on vita icons both aesthetically and structurally. These icons bring the lives of saints closer to the faithful, who were largely illiterate, in sequences of images, almost like in a comic strip. Here, at the beginning of the 20th century, the new medium of film was able to build on the didactic function of icon painting for the purposes of propaganda.

Daniela Amodio: In Sergei Eisenstein's “Bežin lug” (1937), for example, the kolkhoz farmers are presented like icon saints. The film shows, for instance, a peasant boy looking through a riza, which was traditionally placed over icons as a protective cover. In the film, however, the riza appears as an empty shell that needs to be filled anew. In place of a holy figure, there is now a peasant boy. How the scene is composed conveys a clear message: the peasants are now replacing the icon saints. Another technique can be observed in how the young protagonist is portrayed, with the lighting used for him (who represents the new ideology) being reminiscent of that used for icons: he is depicted as glowing from within.

You just mentioned “propaganda purposes” in Soviet film. To what extent were and are icons also used to convey certain political messages?

Irina Wutsdorff: Besides traditional icons, there are now also so-called ‘Stalin icons’ with traditional frames depicting the former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. And recruitment posters for the Russian army also feature the classic so called non-man-made icon of Christ in the background. This is a clear political signal: Orthodoxy represents true values, in contrast to the supposedly decadent West. Russian President Vladimir Putin, for example, also positions himself in his public appearances as part of the faithful and attends Orthodox church services, which include icon worship. Such symbolic actions are designed to emphasise his close connection to Orthodoxy.

Has the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 changed the academic view of icons?

Irina Wutsdorff: Perhaps less so of the icons themselves. But, yes! We researchers in Slavic studies and Eastern European history now take a more critical look at texts and positions relating to icon painting. There is greater recognition today of overlaps with ultra-nationalist ideologies. We increasingly ask ourselves: Should we have taken a more critical view of such traits, which were previously seen more in terms of opposition to Soviet ideology?

Finally, let us take a look beyond Russia. Even though icons are appropriated as a symbol of national identity there, Orthodox Christianity and icon worship exist in other countries, too. A current example is Ukraine, where icons are now painted on empty ammunition boxes. These are often sent back to the front line, where they have the same meaning and function for soldiers as traditional icons. The motif of the so-called “Javelin icon”, in which Mary carries an anti-tank missile in her arms instead of the baby Jesus, has become well known and has been reproduced many times as a meme. This has sparked debate, but it also shows how icons are linked to the current political reality of war. Slavic studies is now increasingly concerned not only with this, but also with Ukrainian literature, which has continued to flourish since independence and despite or in the face of war.