Friday Art & History Feature - Nadya Rusheva

Apollo and Daphne by Nadya Rusheva

 
When I was a young girl in Kiev, Ukraine, I remember my older cousin, an artist, leaving me a book of drawings by Nadya Rusheva when she immigrated. I remember being very moved by the drawings, especially because some of them were of scenes from my favorite book, Master and Margarita by M. Bulgakov, but moved even more, and saddened, by Nadya's biography. I was about twelve or thirteen when I encountered this amazing artist - and she made an especially strong impact on me because she was only 17 when she passed away.

Nadya Rusheva

Nadya was born in 1952 in Ulan Bator, where her parents were staying at the time of her birth, although they soon moved back to Russia. She began drawing when she was five, and by the age of seven, her family realized that she had an amazing talent. She once painted 36 illustrations to "The Tale of Tsar Saltan", written by Alexander Pushkin, in one night, as her father was reading the story to her.

Nadya always drew without preparation, and almost never erased. She often worked with a pen to make the drawings. The simplicity of her drawings, the purity of the lines, make a strong impression and endear to the viewer. When Bulgakov's widow, Yelena Bulgakova, saw the drawings of Master and Margarita by Nadya (when the young artist passed away), she said "I wish I knew this amazing and subtle creature."

Nadya died of a brain hemorrhage because of congenital defect. She died in March of 1969 in Moscow. She created 10,000 artworks in the span of her short, but stunning, life.

Asteroid 3516 Rusheva is named after Nadya.

Here's a collection of some of my favorite drawings by this remarkable young woman.

Master and Margarita meeting for the first time, by Nadya Rusheva

Margarita, by Nadya Rusheva

Centaurs by Nadya Rusheva

Women, by Nadya Rusheva

Pushkin (a classical Russian writer and poet) and his wife, by Nadya Rushina

Goncharova, Pushkin's wife, by Nadya Rusheva

Ballerina, by Nadya Rusheva

Little Prince (by Antoine de Saint-Exupery) by Nadya Rusheva

Quote of the Day

Master and Margarita by Nadya Rusheva (1968)

 

Follow me, reader! Who told you that there is no true, faithful, eternal love in this world! May the liar's vile tongue be cut out! Follow me, my reader, and me alone, and I will show you such a love!

~ Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita 

Quote of the Day

Kindness. The only possible method when dealing with a living creature. You'll get nowhere with an animal if you use terror, no matter what its level of development may be. That I have maintained, do maintain and always will maintain. People who think you can use terror are quite wrong. No, no, terror is useless, whatever its colour – white, red or even brown! Terror completely paralyses the nervous system.
  ~ Mikhail Bulgakov, Heart of a Dog

Teaser Tuesday

NaBloPoMo #8

Here are the rules:

1. Post 2 sentences from the current book you're reading. You can either

a) open the book and share 2 sentences from anywhere on that page or
b) share your favorite 2 senetnces from the book (they have to be in a row)

2. List the page #

*PLEASE DO NOT POST ANYTHING THAT CAN BE INTERPRETED AS A SPOILER!

3. List the name of the book and the author

My teaser of the week follows on the heels of my yesterday's post about one of my favorite books, Master and Margarita. Here are three of the numerous quotes from the book. I won't post the page because there are many translations out there, so the pages differ.

“Follow me, reader! Who told you that there is no true, faithful, eternal love in this world! May the liar's vile tongue be cut out! Follow me, my reader, and me alone, and I will show you such a love!”
“But would you kindly ponder this question: What would your good do if
evil didn't exist, and what would the earth look like if all the shadows
disappeared? After all, shadows are cast by things and people. Here is the
shadow of my sword. But shadows also come from trees and living beings.
Do you want to strip the earth of all trees and living things just because
of your fantasy of enjoying naked light? You're stupid.”

“You should never ask anyone for anything. Never- and especially from those who are more powerful than yourself.”


Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Share your teasers in the comments or give a link to your blog if you're running a Teaser Tuesday.

Master and Margarita - the Amazing Novel That Keeps Giving

NaBloPoMo Post #7

Today, I want to tell you about my favorite book, a book that influenced me since I was barely a teenager. I just finished watching a Russian movie in ten parts based on this book, and, even though it had good actors and was extremely close to the book, almost word for word in fact, I will say again what I have always said – this book is almost impossible to translate onto the big screen or stage. And many have tried.

Curious yet what the book is? I won’t keep you in suspense any longer. I’m talking about Master and Margarita by a famous Russian writer Mikail Bulgakov. Master and Margarita is considered one of the most important and influential literary works of the 20^th century.

Mikail Bulgakov

When I’m asked to describe what the novel is about, I always have a hard time at first. There are two intertwining parts to the novel, two time settings. One is Moscow of the 1930s (the time when Bulgakov wrote), the other is the time of Jesus Christ, called Yeshua in the novel, and of Pontius Pilot. The 1930s Moscow is visited by the Devil (who presents himself as Professor Woland) with his retinue that includes a tall, badly dressed valet by the name of Koroviev, a scary fanged Azazello, who often acts as a hitman, a big black cat that walks on two paws and talks, named Begemot (Behemoth) and a vampire witch Gella. The group wreaks havoc on the city and its citizens. Wollands is also in Moscow to throw his ball, which has to be presided by a woman who has to be named Margarita and who has to be a local. This chosen Margarita enters the scene in part II of the novel, as we get to know the story of her love with the tragic Master. Master is a writer who wrote the novel about Pontius Pilot, the novel that is interspersed as parallel chapters throughout the book. Master was heavily critiqued for it by the literary critics of the socialist communist, religion-less Russia. He suffers greatly because of this and eventually ends up in an insane asylum. Margarita, his mistress, is willing to do anything for him, including becoming a witch and presiding over the Devil's ball.

Much of the novel is a social and political satire written in a light, comedic style. The rest is philosophical and spiritual, with a darker and heavier language.

One of the most famous phrases from Master and Margarita is “Manuscripts Don’t Burn”.

The first time I read Master and Margarita, I was thirteen. Many thought I was too young to read it and were surprised at how much I loved it. I have read it about 20 times since, and every time I read it, I find something new, something I haven’t thought of or realized before. At every age, I read it with renewed awe and fascination. It remains my favorite book still. The last time I read it, I realized that, even though you cannot call it an urban fantasy or paranormal romance per se (and it’s audience is definitely not exclusively women), it definitely has the elements of the genre and was amazed at how it connected to my present day love of writing and reading urban fantasy and paranormal romance.

I have never read the novel in English, just Russian, so I’m not able to suggest the best translation, but here are a few versions. If you’d like to read more, you can find the information here. It is a classic of classics.