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evacuated to the Uzbek town of
Samarkand in 1943, he went with it.

The Central Asian culture fascina-
ted Savitsky in much the same way
that Polynesia had fascinated Paul
Gauguin. He completed his studies
in 1946 and returned to Moscow,
but in 1950 he seized an opportu-
nity to travel back to Central Asia
with an archaeological expedition.
Soon afterward he moved perma-
nently to Nukus.

Savitsky started collecting ancient
artefacts, some of them dating back
to the third century B.C. Later he
broadened his interest to include
folk art and ethnography. He travel-
led from village to village persua-
ding peasant families to sell or give
an artist in the Khirezm Archaeolo- Building such a collection at a time him traditional costumes, jewellery
gical and Ethnographic Expedition when the mere possession of these and other artefacts that in the Sta-
in 1950 led by the world-famous works meant risking imprisonment linist era were considered signs of
scientist, Sergei P. Tolstoy. Fascina- or worse could only have been a backwardness and a possible source
ted by the culture and people of the work of madness, and in fact it was of treason. In 1966 he opened a
steppes, he stayed on after the dig the product of one man's grand museum to display his collection.
and started methodically collecting obsession. That man was Igor Already, however, he had set his
Karakalpak carpets, costumes, jewel- Savitsky. When most of his family sights on higher ambitions.
lery and other works of art. At the moved to the West, as a teenager
same time, he began collecting the Igor decided to remain behind and During the 1960s and 1970s, Sa-
drawings and paintings of artists lin- study painting at the Moscow Art vitsky scoured Moscow, Lenin-
ked to Central Asia, including those Institute. When the institute was grad and other Soviet cities in
of the Uzbek School and, during
the late-1950s/early-1960s, those
of the Russian avant-garde which
the Soviet authorities were then
attempting to banish and destroy.

The art produced in Russia during
the first quarter of this century had
a profound influence on everything
we now know as modern. A brilliant
constellation of gifted artists emer-
ged at a time when many Russians
believed they were on the brink of
a new epoch, one in which the hu-
man spirit would be truly liberated
for the first time. Seeking to convey
their excitement, they produced
a body of work whose originality
was so extraordinary that the Soviet
system proved unable to tolerate it.
In one of the great tragedies of art
history; the Russian avant-garde
was crushed in the early 1930s. Its
exponents were silenced, impri-
soned, exiled, driven mad or mur-
dered. Today in Nukus, however,
they not only survive but triumph.

42 Culture