Jewish life in the Soviet Union was a rather oppressive affair. For decades, Soviet authorities sought to diminish and marginalize Jewish art, forcing Jewish artists to conform to the socialist realism style of art. Soviet Russia’s complex pact, and later disbandment, with the Nazis left a troubling legacy in Soviet Russia, and mention of the Holocaust and the murder of Jews was forbidden. In 1932 Stalin banned independent artistic groups and Jewish artists’ voices were stamped out.
One notable exemption is the art of Anatoli Lvovich Kaplan, (1902–1980) a Soviet-era Russian painter, sculptor and printmaker, whose later works were focused on Jewish themes. His publications were printed in small runs and are hard to come by, thus I was excited to be able to acquire one this week, Der farkishefter shnyder (the enchanted tailor), based on a tale by Sholem Aleichem. It is a portfolio containing within 26 lithographs by Anatoly Kaplan, printed in Leningrad (St. Petersburg), 1957.
Kaplan’s father was a shochet, in Rahachow, in the Jewish Pale of Settlement. Anatoli was an artist from his youth but only took up lithographic work in his 40s and ceramics in his late 60s. Kaplan survived WWII by escaping to the Ural Mountains, but much of his family perished in the war. Kaplan’s Jewish work, often mirrored that of Sholem Aleichem, and a series of lithographs surrounding Sholem Aleichem’s works he published were “The Enchanted Tailor,” “Tevye the Dairyman,” “The Song of Songs,” “Stempenu,” and even “Stories for Children.”
