On June 28, 2024, NGHM | RUSSIAN ART (Nizhny Novgorod, Kremlin, 3) opens the traveling exhibition "Across Russia in the Entourage of the Heir…" (0+), prepared by the Pavlovsk State Museum-Reserve. It is timed to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the birth of the artist Alexei Bogolyubov.
It is through Bogolyubov's eyes, the well-known landscape and marine painter, that contemporary residents of the Volga region's capital will be able to glimpse their city as it was in the mid-19th century. The artist made sketches of Nizhny Novgorod's sights alongside views of other cities during a journey across Russia in the retinue of the heir to the Russian throne — Grand Duke Nikolai Alexandrovich (the eldest son of Emperor Alexander II). For three months the travelers moved by steamships, carriages and railways from St. Petersburg to Petrozavodsk via the Mariinsk system, the Sheksna and the Volga, and along the Don through the Azov and Black Seas to Crimea. At the end of the trip Alexei Bogolyubov presented the Tsesarevich with an album of drawings; 70 of them are on display at the exhibition.
When compiling the drawing album, the artist usually devoted no more than two or three scenes to each city, but to Nizhny Novgorod he dedicated as many as eight. Five of them can be seen in the exhibition: "Annunciation Square in Nizhny Novgorod", "Iron Exchange Building", "Tea Warehouse", "Siberian Quay", "Epiphany Monastery".
A compliment to the host city will be an entire room devoted to drawings of river vessels, whose variety Nizhny was famous for. As curator Olga Lameko, senior researcher at the Pavlovsk State Museum-Reserve, explains, one of the city’s descriptions inspired this part of the exhibition: "Now and then back and forth, up and down the Volga, puffing black clouds of smoke, the steamers run. Breaking the river currents into the gray waves of silvery spray, striking the ear with their incessant whistles, they rush past the city. Nowhere in all of Russia, neither in Petersburg, nor in Kronstadt, nor in our other seaports, is there ever even a third of so many steamers and so many sailing vessels at the same time." Bogolyubov's drawings captured not only steamers and barges but also vessels so exotic to us as the konovodka, mokshan, belyana…
The story connected with the appearance of Alexei Bogolyubov's album deserves special attention. The extended journey of Grand Duke Nikolai Alexandrovich was above all educational. The tutors sought to "acquaint the Tsesarevich not only with the most remarkable regions of the empire, but also with their inhabitants..." and to provide him with "all possible information about the internal condition of Russia..." Such travels — a "wedding with Russia" — became traditional thanks to Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky, the tutor of Grand Duke Alexander Nikolaevich, the future Emperor Alexander II. The heir to the throne was sent on the journey "not to criticize and reform," but to become acquainted with local customs, and to study the everyday life and culture of Russian towns and villages.
The artist lived a bright and eventful life: he was a sailor and a painter, a traveler and a tutor; he enjoyed the highest favor and was himself generous to those in need. A true patriot of the Fatherland, Bogolyubov founded the first public museum in Saratov and the Drawing School attached to it, donating his collection and considerable funds for their development, writing: "...I have always thought that every citizen in my position is obliged to give all his property to his Motherland in order to elevate the educational work for youth..." The anniversary exhibition is a tribute to the artist.
The album drawings will be supplemented by official sources as well as memoirs and records of the journey's participants: Tsesarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich and his companions — the artist A. P. Bogolyubov, and tutors I. K. Babst and K. P. Pobedonostsev.
The exhibition will be open to visitors from June 28, 2024 to August 25, 2024.
