Stakhanovite’s Speech - National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus

Who is a Soviet woman? This concept includes a sustainable idea of women’s certain type, appearance, character and profession. The type of an emancipated woman, a propagandist, a Komsomol member and a party worker has become one of the most common since the first years of Soviet power. This was the ideal image of a ‘Soviet beauty’, so far from the canons of beauty in classical art. This is a mature, strong and beautiful woman. She is a shock worker of heavy industrial labor. So, she lacks feminine charm, elegance and warmth.

One of the brightest images of a new Soviet woman was depicted by Belarusian artist Lyudmila Zdanovskaya in the only work ‘Stakhanovite’s Speech’ in the collection of the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus. To emphasize inhuman abilities of the representatives of the Stakhanov movement, Lyudmila Zdanovskaya carves the figure of her character as if from marble. The Stakhanovite head up high. The woman’s confident look is towards the bright future. The character is an energetic and a fair person.

The same can be said about the stylistic solution of the canvas. The ‘revolutionary’ red color is used as a symbol – it literally makes closer the bearer of the main idea, the stakhanovite, who is depicted frontally and addresses the audience. The most important attributes of the portrait are a table lamp with a green lampshade and a sculpture of the leader, without which it was impossible to imagine not only the central squares of towns, but also institutions and museum collections.

The ‘Stakhanovite’s Speech’ is a combination of a new character and a number of ideas, of special features and a collective nature. Probably, the image of a strong and an honest Stakhanovite, looking at us from the canvas, was not only the result of the author’s reflection, but also the life philosophy of Lyudmila Zdanovskaya. She finished the Vitebsk Art College in 1928. The artist headed the Art Department for the Construction of the Government House in the early 1930s. She began to take part in exhibitions at that time. Unfortunately, the life and creative career of Lyudmila Zdanovskaya were short. The artist was only thirty-four when she died. Presumably, she was killed by the German fascist invaders in occupied Minsk in 1942.