Hole in the Clouds

Tag: (Image credit: Susan Wiggin)

Quiet flows the Don

Aug 4, 2009

For another entry in our occasional series on post-Soviet public art, consider this monument, erected in 2007 in Moscow, thonoring the Nobel-prize-winning author Mikhail Sholokhov.

There must be something about the situation of this monument that makes it difficult to photograph the whole thing at once. I've settled here for a picture that shows barely more than half of it--missing off to the right is most of a stone pedestal supporting a rowboat carrying a bronze statue of Sholokhov himself. That's the bow of the boat and the curve of Sholokhov's back at the right edge of the photo. He is just sitting in the boat, not rowing.

The boat and the swimming horses are not directly from any of his novels, I'm told. Note that there are two groups of horses, both apparently trying to swim upstream but veering off in slightly different directions. One group is reddish in color, the other whitish. This has all been described as a metaphor for the Russian Revolution, in which Sholokhov fought as a 13-year-old boy on the side of the reds. His most famous novel, And Quiet Flows the Don, looks at life among the Cossacks of his native Rostov-on-Don region of Russia in the years leading up to World War I and the Russian Civil War and revolution. If the river is representing time or history, it is surely significant that Sholokhov is facing bacward in the boat.

The monument is the work of a committee: artist Alexander Rukavishnikor, architect Igor Voskresensky, and sculptors Iulian and Philip Rukavishnikov.

Sholokhov is something of a Soviet success story. Although the revolution ended his formal schooling at the age of 13 and he suppored himself in the early 1920s as a stevedore, he decided to become a writer and took advantage of writers' seminars offered for workers.. His mother, a Ukrainian, was illiterate until late in life, when she decided to learn to write letters to her son.

Perhaps the greatest feud of Soviet literary history involved Sholokhov and Aleksandr Solzhenitzsyn, who despised one another. Sholokhov wrote a scathing review of Solzhenitzsyn's work, and Solzhenitzsyn accused Sholokhov of plagiarism. Many Moscow residents dislike the monument intensely--Sholokhov had nothing to do with Moscow, they say, and should not be memorialized in the city--certainly not on the street named Gogol Boulevard, The underlying issue seems to be that he's a Soviet author, and these latter days are a problematic time for monuments to Soviet authors.

Soviet art   Russia   Moscow   Mikhail Sholokhov   Aleksandr Solzhenitzsyn   (Image credit: Susan Wiggin)  

Bring on the snow

Feb 16, 2010

 

School's out this week for February break, but there's basically no snow hereabouts for the kids to play in. For Joshua, Emily, and Andrew, a trip to the artificial snow at Seacoast Park in Windham, Maine, solved the problem neatly. The kids went tubing all day Monday, and came home to . . . a forecast for plenty of snow on Tuesday. Winter's coming back to northern New England; the rest of the country can relax now. 

Emily   Maine   children   winter   Joshua   Andrew   Windham   tubing   (Image credit: Susan Wiggin)  

More Family

Mar 29, 2011

Much of the Maine branch of the family posed recently at a gathering in Susan Wiggin's living room. Clockwise from the red hat: the irrepressible Wiggin children, Emily and Joshua; Maggie Stein; her father Bob; her brother Peter; and the irrepressible Dave Courtney. Maggie was back in Portland for a visit from Rochester, NY, where she now works as an RN.

Joshua Wiggin   Emily Wiggin   family   children   Bob Stein   Maggie Stein   Peter Stein   Dave Courtney   (Image credit: Susan Wiggin)  

Buddy System

Jul 14, 2012

It's time for another visit with the Brownies of Troop 1714 from Portland, Maine, this time during their daylong excursion to Boston, which was funded by Girl Scout cookie sales. The Brownies rode buses and subways; visited the aquarium, the IMAX theater, and Fanueil Hall; and dined and danced at Hard Rock Cafe. Girls and leaders survived the adventure thanks to the buddy system.

Emily   Boston   Massachusetts   children   Brownies   South Station   (Image credit: Susan Wiggin)  

Ceremony

Mar 28, 2013

This was a winter of of moving on up for Joshua and his denmates in Portland, Maine, as they graduated from cub scouts into boy scouts. The controversy surrounding scouting these days is probably inaudible or nearly so to the kids, who like scouts of generations past happily keep their eyes on the prize: camping trips and merit badges and all that awesome quasi-Native American stuff.

Portland   Maine   children   Joshua   Boy Scouts   (Image credit: Susan Wiggin)