Sverdlovsk Art and Cultural Patronage of the Red Army: Prehistory of Relations and the Process in the Post-War Period (1946–1952)

The topic of interaction between artists and the armed forces of the USSR before the Great Patriotic War and after it is a subject of study for historians, cultural scientists, philologists, theater critics, film critics, art historians. Nevertheless, the visual art of Sverdlovsk in the aspect of analysis and description of cultural and patronage relations of artists with the Red Army has never been the object of special study. The proposed article is, in fact, one of the first, if not the only scientific work to date, based on the introduction to the practice of domestic art studies, the history of Soviet art, information and data on the emergence and development of contacts between artists of Sverdlovsk and military personnel in the framework of patronage of the creative intelligentsia of the Red Army in 1946–1952. The period of the 1920–1930s is considered also on the basis of archival documents, making outlines of the more accurate data on patronage ties between RABIS, the Organizing Committee of the Union of Artists Sverdlovsk branch and the Soviet military personnel in the Ural military district.