Introduction

This matryoshka departs from its 1892 prototype in featuring two power-suited male politicians rather than a single rooster-holding peasant woman. Inside the doll are several more matched pairs of Russian and American presidents who were contemporaries, with Khrushchev and Kennedy depicted on the smallest doll. This type of matryoshka, its surface depicting famous figures from modern-day athletes and musicians and to cosmonauts and heads of state, was as prevalent at the Vernisazh market as the more traditional type featuring a typically blonde, colorfully dressed, wide-eyed woman.<br /><br /> The geopolitical symbolism of this presidential matryoshka resides in the eye of the beholder. The artist who designed this doll intended to convey a chilly relationship between the two leaders. And yet, a kind of warmth radiates from the image; the artist sought to depict each leader as a human being rather than a caricature, so it may be his kindness and generosity that imbues the doll with this benevolent aura. Perhaps fittingly, the light that seems to emanate from these iconic world leaders echoes the luminousness of icons, which have served as a major source of inspiration for generations of Russian artists, including ones who create secular images.

Description

This matryoshka is relatively large, seven inches tall and glossy, on a circular black base. Painted upon its surface is the image of two world leaders who were in power at the time when the matryoshka was made. On the left is U.S. president Barack Obama, and on the right, Russian president Vladimir Putin. The portraits are not caricatures; on the contrary, they strive for realism, perhaps seeking to echo the press photographs of these leaders. At first glance, the men’s images appear flattering as well as similar to one another. Looking closer reveals small differences that present a historical narrative: visual details speak of the leaders’ relationship to one another as they each seek a dominant position on the world stage that is symbolized here by the matryoshka silhouette.

The leaders’ heads are level with one another, although in real life Obama is six inches taller. Both men are clad in suits and ties—Obama in a gray suit and striped gray/red tie, Putin in a black suit with a striped gray/blue tie. The colors of the ties reappear in the background, which looks like a composite of American and Russian flags, with a white stripe behind Obama and a red stripe behind Putin. The leaders’ heads are juxtaposed against a blue background with three white stars arching over Obama’s head, evoking a starry sky. Both men’s names –“B. Obama” and “В. Путин [V. Putin]” (note the symmetry of the “B”) respectively—are written in white script across their torsos, as if each leader has signed his own image.

Each of the men is smiling, though Obama’s smile is broad, warm, and confident, while Putin’s expression is more reserved, a pinched half-smile verging on a scowl. The men’s bodies are so close together that it is striking. The surface of the matryoshka becomes for a moment a utopian space within which the leaders of the two countries share one another’s space peacefully—so different from the customary press images of Obama with Putin, their body language ranging from awkward to antagonistic.

A close look at the matryoshka reveals that Obama is slightly in front of Putin; the American leader further eclipses his Russian counterpart visually speaking, in that the stars are on his side, suggesting good fortune. All of which would explain Putin’s half-smiling expression—putting on a show of diplomacy while nursing a grievance and (as we now know) planning something.

The back of the doll is not decorated, only covered in varnish that allows the wood grain to emerge. This matryoshka thus departs from the classic in-the-round format in favor of a façade presentation—perhaps appropriate given that it depicts politicians, for whom public image is paramount. Inside this doll are four others, all depicting U.S./Russian leader match-ups, traveling backward in time into the Soviet period. George W. Bush is next to Putin, with the men looking in different directions, despite W’s much-derided 2001 quote about looking Putin in the eye and getting “a sense of his soul.” Next come Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin; Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev; and finally, John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev. In each case, the men are clad in suits and look straight ahead rather than at each other, but they are –thanks to the close confines of the matryoshka surface—in intimate proximity to one another, as they never were in real life.

Who made this object?

Andrei (not his real name) draws studies for other artists, who then paint the dolls, which are made of linden and aspen. He himself went to art school and now teaches history. He wrote his dissertation about the influence of the national idea on the Japanese government in the Meiji period. Andrei’s background as a historian of politics sheds light on his outlook and artistic production, and he –like many fellow Russians—has a nuanced relationship to the ideologies that have shaped him.

Andrei’s father held the title of Honored Artist of the Soviet Union and painted portraits of Lenin. Thanks to state patronage (known as goszakaz, short for gosudarstvennyi zakaz or “state order”), his art was always in demand, and Andrei said he was a bit nostalgic for that time, when artists could live off their art. Andrei has carried on his father’s tradition of political portraiture, but there are now rock stars and film icons in the mix as well. In the 1960s and 1970s, Andy Warhol gave the same painterly treatment to Marilyn Monroe, Chairman Mao, a Campbell’s soup can, and an electric chair, foregrounding each of these had taken on the status of a spectacular celebrity object of consumption by the masses. Andrei’s matryoshki fit into this paradigm quite well.

Andrei has been selling these dolls for 15 years. His designs included American female icons such as Madonna, Marilyn Monroe, and Britney Spears, as well Elvis, Lenin, Lennon, and JFK. He continues to be amazed that adults are interested in these dolls, particularly the ones depicting politicians; he said only a few “justify themselves,” such as one depicting the Buddha. He did not consider his dolls to be in the category of “culture” and instead pointed to the ones made in the town of Sergiev Posad, whose artisans maintain the traditional designs, in contrast with his own departures from tradition. Alexei focuses on icons/celebrities of the 20th-21st century, choosing, in a bid for customers, presentism over timelessness (with rare exceptions—like the Buddha).

Design

Matryoshki are cylinder- or egg-shaped; depending on the region where they are made, the doll’s shape varies from squat to elongated, and from bullet-shaped to more human-shaped. The first matryoshka, designed in 1892, took the form of a peasant woman, and that has always been its most popular incarnation. But not long after its debut, painters began to tinker with the female peasant prototype. In the early 20th century, as the matryoshki became a major export, artists broke away from the convention of depicting female figures. They introduced male characters such as shepherds; family groups featuring a bride, groom, and relatives; folk tale characters; personages in Gogol’s writing, to mark 100 years since his birth; and General Kutuzov and Napoleon, to mark the centenary of the 1812 battle of Borodino. Today, some matryoshki still take the form of a peasant woman, but now with her belly serving as a space in which images from landscapes to religious icons appear.

In the period of increased freedom under Gorbachev, matryoshki artists began to depict Soviet leaders. This design became quite popular with customers; for Russians, it may have been especially amusing to see the male leaders in a female role. Russia is still a very patriarchal society, but the depiction of males –including much-respected ones—on the matryoshka surface is now completely acceptable. The matryoshka body has become a screen onto which all sorts of cultural myths and fantasies are projected.

The matryoshka is a hybrid object. It is a toy and a work of art (sometimes the artistry is quite intricate and the artist proudly signs their name at the bottom) and the two are at times at odds with one another. At the Vernisazh market, we noted a huge spectrum of sizes, levels of ornateness, and prices, with a super-detailed hand-painted set of 18 dolls selling for $1000. Designs beyond the traditional peasant woman ranged from cosmonauts to rock stars and pro athletes. One matryoshka, depicting Osama bin Laden, surprisingly was being openly sold despite the increasing official persecution of anything related to “extremism.” The merchant told us that inside Bin Laden was Saddam Hussein, and then “that guy with glasses” (an apparent reference to the terrorist leader Ayman al-Zawahiri). He said that the Bin Laden matryoshka sold most briskly after the man portrayed upon it had been “whacked”; now he sells just a few.

Reflections

In the wake of the wholesale destruction of monuments to Soviet leaders following the dissolution of the USSR, Svetlana Boym wrote in 1993 about the matryoshki “with Gorbachev or Jesus Christ faces or any other touristic images of Russianness, such as Russian landscapes with churches and birch trees” as well as writers and tsars, that she encountered on the tourist-thronged Arbat Street in Moscow:

“Today, there is a direct relationship between the growing number of matreshkas and the diminishing number of monuments. Cultural scales and hierarchies are changing, as … the intimidating public statues find their comical reflection in ironic ordinary objects and toys… in the postutopian climate of glasnost’ and post-glasnost’, they are comic artifacts with which adults play at politics and the new commercialism. These toys have … an aura of history of ideological manipulations and of many paradises lost: the paradise of childhood, of totalitarian infantilism, and of pure folk spirit.” (Common Places, 235-38)

The design of our presidential matryoshka presents Russia and the U.S. as doubles always linked with each other. Susan Buck-Morss writes about Western capitalism and Soviet communism offering twin versions of mass utopia in the twentieth century; those utopian visions have now come to an end, but we can try to learn from them before they pass into oblivion.

The creator of this doll described it as “the history of cold relationships,” echoing the term “Cold War,” a conflict whose second iteration is upon us now, as some (controversially) say. Let us unpack his notion that these dolls represent a kind of “history.” As the dolls get smaller in size, they appear to recede further and further into the past. In War and Peace, Tolstoy argued that history is not actually made by “great men” such as the ones depicted here, but by anonymous individuals (like the artist who designed these dolls and his assistants who painted them). This matryoshka indeed brings these “great men” down to (doll)size.

The smaller matryoshki portray leaders from the time when Russia (USSR) was a superpower. Continuing to pair them even after 1991 suggests another fantasy projection, the idea that Russia remains, in some way, a superpower, maybe a nascent one along the lines of epic hero Ilya Muromets. As legend has it, the warrior Ilya lay immobile for thirty years atop a peasant stove, and then, after being healed by pilgrims, rose up to commit great deeds, most notably to save medieval Russian lands from invasion.

The expressive detail in the Obama/Putin matryoshka suggests (through the proximity of their bodies) the utopian possibility of the two countries sharing the space of the globe peacefully, but also (via their contrasting expressions) the fact that individual psychology can have world-shaking consequences. Arguably, the personal animus between Obama and Putin affected the relationship between the countries they represented, with global implications.

There are several ways to read the visual impact of matryoshki whose design departs from the traditional portrait of a peasant woman and branches out to include every imaginable image. Such a design, situating the depicted image within the Russia-identified silhouette, is potentially a figure for containment, appropriation, or annexation. But we could read it instead as an emblem for how culture itself works: incorporating other cultures not in a domineering but in a dialogic way, resulting in diverse images within a shape that is still recognizably “Russian”—making the contemporary matryoshka the very embodiment of cultural pluralism.

Sources

• Warhol Mao: https://www.wikiart.org/en/andy-warhol/mao-2
• Warhol soup can: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol#/media/File:Warhol-Campbell_Soup-1-screenprint-1968.jpg
• Image of Ilya MurometsImage of Obama and Putin interacting: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/obama-putin-meet-sidelines-united-nations-general-assembly-n434661
• Svetlana Boym, Common Places: Mythologies of Everyday Life in RussiaLeo Tolstoy, War and PeaceSusan
• Buck-Morss, Dreamworld and Catastrophe: The Passing of Mass Utopia in East and WestFyodor Dostoevsky, Pushkin Speech [link]