CENTURY CITY TIME LINE - Moscow

  • Manifesto From Cubism and Futurism to Suprematism by Kazimir Malevich.
  • February Revolution; Lenin and the Bolshevik Red Guards overthrow the Provisional Government in Petrograd.
  • Establishment of the Narkompros (The People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment).
  • Proletkult set up in many cities to encourage proletarian participation in the new culture.
  • Peace of Brest-Litowsk between Russia and Central Powers.
  • Lenin launches his plan for monumental propaganda.
  • First poster depicting Lenin issued.
  • The Bolshevik party is renamed the Communist Party.
  • Russia’s capital moves from Petrograd to Moscow.
  • Nationalisation of all industrial and economic assets.
  • Appointment of Leon Trotsky as Commissar of War.
  • The Gregorian calendar is adopted in Russia.
  • Creation of the Politburo.
  • Nationalisation of film industry.
  • Establishment of INKhUK (Institute of Artistic Culture) uniting avante-garde artists.
  • Establishment of VKhUTEMAS (Higher State Artistic-Technical Workshops), Moscow’s leading art school.
  • Realistic Manifesto published by Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner.
  • Vladimir Tatlin exhibits his model for the Monument to the Third International in Petrograd and Moscow.
  • End of Civil War; famine kills hundreds of thousands of Russians.
  • Lenin inaugurates NEP, the New Economic Policy; partial restoration of private enterprise.
  • Exhibition 5 x 5 = 25 opens in Moscow.
  • The slogan Art into Life is coined, marking the beginning of the productivist phase of constructivism.
  • Stalin is elected General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.
  • Formal establishment of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), with over 22.4 million square kilometres, making it the largest country in the world.
  • The Meyerhold Theatre produces The Magnanimous Cuckold by Fernand Crommelynck designed by Liubov Popova and The Death of Tarelkin designed by Varvara Stepanova.
  • Opening of the First Russian Art Exhibition in Berlin.
  • AKHRR (Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia) is formed, espousing traditional realism.

  • First publication of the magazine LEF edited by Vladimir Mayakovsky and Osip Brik.

  • First all-Russian exhibition of art and production opens.

  • The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton with designs by Alexander Vesnin is produced at Tairov’s Kamerny Theatre.

  • Within a year, 90 cinemas open in Moscow.
  • Death of Lenin
  • Lenin’s Mausoleum is designed by Aleksei Shchusev and its first wooden version is erected at the Red Square.
  • The mass spectacle The Earth in Turmoil by Tretjakov is produced by Meyerhold based on designs by Popova; it attracts 25,000 visitors.
  • Teachers and students of VKhUTEMAS participate in the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Moderne in Paris.
  • Society of Easel Painters OSL founded.
  • OSA (Association of Contemporary Architects) founded by Ginzburg and the Vesnin brothers.
  • Release of Sergei Eisentsein’s film The Battleship Potemkin in Berlin and Moscow.
  • Mostorg, the first Moscow department store, designed by the Vesnin brothers opens.
  • Screening of the film The End of the Romanov Dynasty by Shub.
  • The Moscow section of INKhUK (Institute of Artistic Culture) is closed.
  • Trotsky is expelled from the Communist Party.
  • Novyi LEF replaces LEF, with Alexander Rodchenko taking a leading role.
  • El Lissitzky designs USSR pavilion at the International Press Exhibition in Cologne.
  • Founding of the October Group.
  • Tretyakov Gallery starts labelling exhibits according to their class origin.
  • Inauguration of first Five-Year Plan by Stalin.
  • Release of the film The Man with a Movie Camera by Dziga Vertov.
  • Nikolai Bukharin is removed from the Politburo leaving Stalin without rivals.
  • Anatoli Lunacharski, Minister of Culture, is removed from office.
  • Moscow VKhUTEMAS is reorganised, then dissolved.
  • Mayakovsky commits suicide; huge crowds mourn his death.
  • Kazimir Malevich is imprisoned for three months.
  • The Central Committee of the Party demands the ‘liquidation’ of the Kulak as a class; start of collectivisation of Soviet agriculture.