Reconstructing the plot of the picture by I.E. Repin “Before the Confession”

I.E. Repin, choosing plots for his paintings, was guided not only by the life and life impressions, but also by literary sources. It is known that the first impulse to writing the picture was the poem of N. Minsky “The Last Confession,” but at the same time the fate of the Narodnik movement in the 1870s could not but interest Repin. In the article it is proved that one of the sources of the picture is I.E. Repins’ picture “Before the Confession” was a poem by N.M. Minsky. In Soviet historiography, the picture was interpreted in a certain way, allowing the artist to be included in the number of representatives of the democratic camp that supported people’s liberation movement in its struggle against the autocracy, interpreting the painting as the artist’s support for revolutionary resistance to the existing order. Newest studies of the history of conception and embodiment, without challenging the general idea of the conflict between the old and the new world, clarify peculiarities of the collision of worldviews collision. First of all, in this picture for the first time the topic of temptation and ascetic feat is applied to the contemporary situation of life of a secular private person, an intellectual nihilist. Lastly, the characters are presented in contradiction according to the then literary tradition, in which any decision of an independently thinking person was represented as a consequence of an internal struggle. To judge the outcome of the conflict was left to the viewer, the artist deliberately does not give unambiguous answers to the questions posed,moreover, he seeks to bring the troubling problems of rebellious youth against the old world order to a new level of comprehension. That is not completely clear, and it is implied that the conflict will be resolved only in real life. Thus, consideration of the creative history of one picture helps to understand both the plot of the picture and its characters, and to clarify the place of this small-sized picture in the artist’s work and the history of Russian realism.

Russian realistic painting of the second half of the 19th century, genre painting, historical painting, everyday scene, characters in painting, intellectual-nihilist revolutionary, theme of the prisoner’s fate, theme of temptation, Russian religiosity, Russian revolutionaries, Narodnik movement, populism, populist series Repin’s paintings, I.E. Repin,

1. Lebedev AK., editor. Repin I.E., Stasov V.V. Letters. 3 vol. Vol. 2: 1877-1894. Moscow; Leningrad: Iskusstvo Publ.; 1949. 456 p. (In Russ.)

2. Minsky NM. The last confession (1879). Site «Allpoetry» (data obrashcheniya 25.07.2017). URL: http://www.100bestpoems.ru/item_info.php?id=12494http://narovol.narod.ru/minsky.htm // (In Russ.)

3. Silberstein IS. Work by I.E. Repin Refuse to confess before execution. V: I.E. Repin: Collection of reports and materials. Scientific conference dedicated to the great Russian artist Ilya Efimovich Repin on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of his death. Moscow: Akademiya khudozhestv SSSR Publ.; 1952. 135 p. (In Russ.)

4. Sherikh DIu. The city is by the scaffold. For what and how they werw executed in Petersburg. Moscow: Центрполиграф Publ.; 2014. 320 p. (In Russ.)