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Hanna Chuchvaha

University of Calgary, School of Languages, Linguistics, Literatures, and Cultures, Faculty Member

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I am a scholar of Slavic studies and art history with a focus on several fields, such as print culture, word and image, women art collectors, and art of trauma within East European region. My research was funded by SSHRC, the Friends of the Libraries of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and by the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. I presented on major international conferences, such as ASEEES (Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies); CAA (College Art Association); IAWIS/AIERTI (International Association of Word and Image Studies); UAAC (Universities Art Association of Canada); CAS (Canadian Association of Slavists); ACLA (American Comparative Literature Association) and many others. Also I contribute to the academic community as Book Review Editor for H-Net – in 2016-2017 I was Book Review Editor for H-Russia, and since 2017 I am Book Review Editor for H-SHERA (Society of Historians of East European, Eurasian and Russian Art and Architecture) Reviews. In addition, I serve as Editorial Board Member for East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies.

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Papers by Hanna Chuchvaha

Quiet Feminists: Women Collectors, Exhibitors and Patrons for Embroidery, Lace and Needlework in Late Imperial Russia (1860-1917)

West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History and Material Culture, 2020

In the patriarchal culture of imperial Russia, the collecting, preserving, and exhibiting of art ... more In the patriarchal culture of imperial Russia, the collecting, preserving, and exhibiting of art works was an activity reserved predominantly for men; in the second half of the nineteenth century, however, a new type of female collector emerged. In both the capitals and provinces, women began collecting, exhibiting, and promoting folk arts and crafts and needlework. This article examines the focus on the part of specific female collectors and patrons on objects associated with women, their pastimes, domesticity, and femininity, all understood as an expression of both self and group identity. It examines this unfolding feminist project through five stages: (1) collecting artifacts associated with women; (2) displaying them at home or at private museums; (3) organizing and supporting the handicraft workshops and practical schools for peasant women; (4) popularizing those artifacts via printed editions; and (5) publishing ethnographic commentaries which reflected female pastimes, material culture, and crafts in the context of traditional culture and the arts and crafts revival.

The Rococo Revival in Alexandre Benois's Versailles: Fête galantes and Louis XIV in the Early Twentieth-Century Russian Art

Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 2012

Alexandre Benois, the founder of The World of Art (Mir Iskusstva) movement, a brilliant graphic d... more Alexandre Benois, the founder of The World of Art (Mir Iskusstva) movement, a brilliant graphic designer, a prominent art critic and historian renowned for his writings on art history , and a distinguished theatre artist who worked for Serge Diaghilev's Russian Seasons, was fascinated with Versailles. His passion lasted over thirty years and resulted in the Versailles (Versal') series that culminated in more than six hundred drawings, watercolors, pastels, gouaches, engravings and canvases created during two prolonged stays in France (1896-1899 and 1905-1907). Although the research on Benois's oeuvre has expanded during the last two decades, the majority of his works have yet to be interpreted. This article examines an unexplored aspect of Versailles, a distinctive Rococo-revivalist style which Benois assimilated in France. Examined through the prism of the Europeanization of Russian art, this article will explain Rococo revivalism of Versailles in a historico-cultural context.

IMAGES, WORDS, AND BOOK PRODUCTION IN THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE: POPULAR PRINTS, LUBOK BOOKS, AND ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINES by HANNA CHUCHVAHA

Cheap Print and the People. European Perspectives on Popular Literature, edited by David Atkinson and Steve Roud (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2019), 2019

This chapter charts the production and distribution of popular prints (known as lubki), illustrat... more This chapter charts the production and distribution of popular prints (known as lubki), illustrated chapbooks (known as lubok books), and illustrated periodicals in Russia, from the seventeenth century, when the first popular prints appeared, through to 1917, with an emphasis on the nineteenth century. During the nineteenth century Russia experienced rapid urbanization and industrialization which created the conditions for a rapid expansion of the reading public and in the second half of the century book and periodical production increased fourfold. 1 Under these new conditions popular taste shifted away from the popular prints and towards a new kind of popular literature in the form of illustrated chapbooks and magazines. 2 Print Culture in Muscovite Russia For centuries the book in Russia was a scribal product. In the second half of the sixteenth century Muscovy experienced quite a painful move away from manuscript culture. Officially, the print revolution began on 19 April 1563, the day when the first book appeared from the Moscow Press House (Pechatnyi dvor).

Memory, Trauma, and the Maternal: Post- Apocalyptic View of the Chernobyl/Chornobyl/ Charnobyl Nuclear Disaster

East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies (ewjus.com) ISSN 2292-7956 Volume VII, No. 2 (2020) , 2020

Chornobyl/Chernobyl/Charnobyl has a symbolic meaning for several generations of east Europeans. I... more Chornobyl/Chernobyl/Charnobyl has a symbolic meaning for several generations of east Europeans. It is a city that experienced a disastrous nuclear explosion in 1986 that bequeathed a post-apocalyptic landscape and an eloquent demonstration of the Anthropocene. The epistemological crisis for humanity provoked by the Chornobyl nuclear disaster led to the emergence of post-Chornobyl art, an art of acceptance and denial, an art of physical and emotional trauma, an art that symbolized humanity's responsibility for the future. This paper focuses on art works produced in the first two decades after the explosion at the Chornobyl nuclear plant. The range of art pieces examined in this paper is diverse, from representational art to conceptual installations. The article is an attempt to analyze the trend of post-Chornobyl art created by witnesses of the tragedy. They are Belarusian and Ukrainian artists for whom Chornobyl epitomizes the point of non-return, the overwhelming tragedy of their people, and the devastation of their land; and for whom Chornobyl is an inverted metaphor of the legitimacy of peaceful atom and the results of the Anthropocene. The paper employs Griselda Pollock's theoretical approach to trauma and focuses on the art of the maternal created by artists of both genders.

Books by Hanna Chuchvaha

Art Periodical Culture in Late Imperial Russia (1898-1917): Print Modernism in Transition (Brill: Boston & Leiden, 2016)

Brill, 2016

Art Periodical Culture in Late Imperial Russia (1898-1917). Print Modernism in Transition offers ... more Art Periodical Culture in Late Imperial Russia (1898-1917). Print Modernism in Transition offers a detailed exploration of the major Modernist art periodicals in late imperial Russia, the World of Art (Mir Iskusstva, 1899-1904), The Golden Fleece (Zolotoe runo, 1906-1909) and Apollo(Apollon, 1909-1917). By exploring the role of art reproduction in the nineteenth century and the emergence of these innovative art journals in the turn of the century, Hanna Chuchvaha proves that these Modernist periodicals advanced the Russian graphic arts and reinforced the development of reproduction technologies and the art of printing. Offering a detailed examination of the “inaugural” issues, which included editorial positions expressed in words and images, Hanna Chuchvaha analyses the periodicals’ ideologies and explores journals as art objects appearing in their unique socio-historical context in imperial Russia.

Book Reviews by Hanna Chuchvaha

Book review of Tim Harte, Faster, Higher, Stronger, Comrades! Sports, Art and Ideology in Late Russian and Early Soviet Culture. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2020.

Slavic Review , 2022

Book review of Ana Janevski et al, editors. Art and Theory of Post-1989 Central and Eastern Europe: A Critical Anthology. Foreword by Glenn D. Lowry, The Museum of Modern Art, 2018.

East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies , 2023

Book review of Patty Wageman (et al., ed.) Russian Legends. Folk Tales and Fairy Tales. Rotterdam, Netherlands: Groninger Museum, NAI Publishers, 2007.

Folklorica: Journal of Slavic, Eastern European and Eurasian Folklore Association , 2010

Book review of Patty Wageman, ed. Russian Legends. Folk Tales and Fairy Tales. Rotterdam, Netherl... more

Book review of Colleen McQuillen, The modernist masquerade. Stylizing life, literature, and costumes in Russia, Madison WI, The University of Wisconsin Press, 2013.

Canadian Slavonic Papers , 2016

Book review of Colleen McQuillen, The modernist masquerade. Stylizing life, literature, and costu... more

Book review of Rosalind P. Blakesley, The Russian canvas: painting in imperial Russia, 1757–1881, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2016

Canadian Slavonic Papers , 2018

Book review of Molly Brunson, Russian realisms. Literature and painting 1840-1890, DeKalb: Northern University Press, 2016

Canadian Slavonic Papers, 2018

Book review of Matthew S. Witkovsky and Devin Fore, editors. Revoliutsiia! Demonstratsiia! Soviet Art Put to the Test. Contributors, Yve-Alain Bois et al., foreword by James Rondeau, The Art Institute of Chicago, 2017. Distributed by Yale UP.

East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies , 2019

Book review of Colleen Lucey. Love for Sale: Representing Prostitution in Imperial Russia. NIU Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. Ithaca: Northern Illinois University Press, 2021.

H-Net/H-Russia , 2024

https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=57327

Double book review of Tom Cubbin, Soviet Critical Design: Senezh Studio and the Communist Surround (2019) and Yulia Karpova, Comradely Objects: Design and Material Culture in Soviet Russia, 1960s-80s (2020).

H-Net/H-Material Culture , 2022

https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=55893

Quiet Feminists: Women Collectors, Exhibitors and Patrons for Embroidery, Lace and Needlework in Late Imperial Russia (1860-1917)

West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History and Material Culture, 2020

In the patriarchal culture of imperial Russia, the collecting, preserving, and exhibiting of art ... more In the patriarchal culture of imperial Russia, the collecting, preserving, and exhibiting of art works was an activity reserved predominantly for men; in the second half of the nineteenth century, however, a new type of female collector emerged. In both the capitals and provinces, women began collecting, exhibiting, and promoting folk arts and crafts and needlework. This article examines the focus on the part of specific female collectors and patrons on objects associated with women, their pastimes, domesticity, and femininity, all understood as an expression of both self and group identity. It examines this unfolding feminist project through five stages: (1) collecting artifacts associated with women; (2) displaying them at home or at private museums; (3) organizing and supporting the handicraft workshops and practical schools for peasant women; (4) popularizing those artifacts via printed editions; and (5) publishing ethnographic commentaries which reflected female pastimes, material culture, and crafts in the context of traditional culture and the arts and crafts revival.

The Rococo Revival in Alexandre Benois's Versailles: Fête galantes and Louis XIV in the Early Twentieth-Century Russian Art

Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 2012

Alexandre Benois, the founder of The World of Art (Mir Iskusstva) movement, a brilliant graphic d... more Alexandre Benois, the founder of The World of Art (Mir Iskusstva) movement, a brilliant graphic designer, a prominent art critic and historian renowned for his writings on art history , and a distinguished theatre artist who worked for Serge Diaghilev's Russian Seasons, was fascinated with Versailles. His passion lasted over thirty years and resulted in the Versailles (Versal') series that culminated in more than six hundred drawings, watercolors, pastels, gouaches, engravings and canvases created during two prolonged stays in France (1896-1899 and 1905-1907). Although the research on Benois's oeuvre has expanded during the last two decades, the majority of his works have yet to be interpreted. This article examines an unexplored aspect of Versailles, a distinctive Rococo-revivalist style which Benois assimilated in France. Examined through the prism of the Europeanization of Russian art, this article will explain Rococo revivalism of Versailles in a historico-cultural context.

IMAGES, WORDS, AND BOOK PRODUCTION IN THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE: POPULAR PRINTS, LUBOK BOOKS, AND ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINES by HANNA CHUCHVAHA

Cheap Print and the People. European Perspectives on Popular Literature, edited by David Atkinson and Steve Roud (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2019), 2019

This chapter charts the production and distribution of popular prints (known as lubki), illustrat... more This chapter charts the production and distribution of popular prints (known as lubki), illustrated chapbooks (known as lubok books), and illustrated periodicals in Russia, from the seventeenth century, when the first popular prints appeared, through to 1917, with an emphasis on the nineteenth century. During the nineteenth century Russia experienced rapid urbanization and industrialization which created the conditions for a rapid expansion of the reading public and in the second half of the century book and periodical production increased fourfold. 1 Under these new conditions popular taste shifted away from the popular prints and towards a new kind of popular literature in the form of illustrated chapbooks and magazines. 2 Print Culture in Muscovite Russia For centuries the book in Russia was a scribal product. In the second half of the sixteenth century Muscovy experienced quite a painful move away from manuscript culture. Officially, the print revolution began on 19 April 1563, the day when the first book appeared from the Moscow Press House (Pechatnyi dvor).

Memory, Trauma, and the Maternal: Post- Apocalyptic View of the Chernobyl/Chornobyl/ Charnobyl Nuclear Disaster

East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies (ewjus.com) ISSN 2292-7956 Volume VII, No. 2 (2020) , 2020

Chornobyl/Chernobyl/Charnobyl has a symbolic meaning for several generations of east Europeans. I... more Chornobyl/Chernobyl/Charnobyl has a symbolic meaning for several generations of east Europeans. It is a city that experienced a disastrous nuclear explosion in 1986 that bequeathed a post-apocalyptic landscape and an eloquent demonstration of the Anthropocene. The epistemological crisis for humanity provoked by the Chornobyl nuclear disaster led to the emergence of post-Chornobyl art, an art of acceptance and denial, an art of physical and emotional trauma, an art that symbolized humanity's responsibility for the future. This paper focuses on art works produced in the first two decades after the explosion at the Chornobyl nuclear plant. The range of art pieces examined in this paper is diverse, from representational art to conceptual installations. The article is an attempt to analyze the trend of post-Chornobyl art created by witnesses of the tragedy. They are Belarusian and Ukrainian artists for whom Chornobyl epitomizes the point of non-return, the overwhelming tragedy of their people, and the devastation of their land; and for whom Chornobyl is an inverted metaphor of the legitimacy of peaceful atom and the results of the Anthropocene. The paper employs Griselda Pollock's theoretical approach to trauma and focuses on the art of the maternal created by artists of both genders.

Art Periodical Culture in Late Imperial Russia (1898-1917): Print Modernism in Transition (Brill: Boston & Leiden, 2016)

Brill, 2016

Art Periodical Culture in Late Imperial Russia (1898-1917). Print Modernism in Transition offers ... more Art Periodical Culture in Late Imperial Russia (1898-1917). Print Modernism in Transition offers a detailed exploration of the major Modernist art periodicals in late imperial Russia, the World of Art (Mir Iskusstva, 1899-1904), The Golden Fleece (Zolotoe runo, 1906-1909) and Apollo(Apollon, 1909-1917). By exploring the role of art reproduction in the nineteenth century and the emergence of these innovative art journals in the turn of the century, Hanna Chuchvaha proves that these Modernist periodicals advanced the Russian graphic arts and reinforced the development of reproduction technologies and the art of printing. Offering a detailed examination of the “inaugural” issues, which included editorial positions expressed in words and images, Hanna Chuchvaha analyses the periodicals’ ideologies and explores journals as art objects appearing in their unique socio-historical context in imperial Russia.

Book review of Tim Harte, Faster, Higher, Stronger, Comrades! Sports, Art and Ideology in Late Russian and Early Soviet Culture. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2020.

Slavic Review , 2022

Book review of Ana Janevski et al, editors. Art and Theory of Post-1989 Central and Eastern Europe: A Critical Anthology. Foreword by Glenn D. Lowry, The Museum of Modern Art, 2018.

East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies , 2023

Book review of Patty Wageman (et al., ed.) Russian Legends. Folk Tales and Fairy Tales. Rotterdam, Netherlands: Groninger Museum, NAI Publishers, 2007.

Folklorica: Journal of Slavic, Eastern European and Eurasian Folklore Association , 2010

Book review of Patty Wageman, ed. Russian Legends. Folk Tales and Fairy Tales. Rotterdam, Netherl... more

Book review of Colleen McQuillen, The modernist masquerade. Stylizing life, literature, and costumes in Russia, Madison WI, The University of Wisconsin Press, 2013.

Canadian Slavonic Papers , 2016

Book review of Colleen McQuillen, The modernist masquerade. Stylizing life, literature, and costu... more

Book review of Rosalind P. Blakesley, The Russian canvas: painting in imperial Russia, 1757–1881, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2016

Canadian Slavonic Papers , 2018

Book review of Molly Brunson, Russian realisms. Literature and painting 1840-1890, DeKalb: Northern University Press, 2016

Canadian Slavonic Papers, 2018

Book review of Matthew S. Witkovsky and Devin Fore, editors. Revoliutsiia! Demonstratsiia! Soviet Art Put to the Test. Contributors, Yve-Alain Bois et al., foreword by James Rondeau, The Art Institute of Chicago, 2017. Distributed by Yale UP.

East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies , 2019

Book review of Colleen Lucey. Love for Sale: Representing Prostitution in Imperial Russia. NIU Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. Ithaca: Northern Illinois University Press, 2021.

H-Net/H-Russia , 2024

https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=57327

Double book review of Tom Cubbin, Soviet Critical Design: Senezh Studio and the Communist Surround (2019) and Yulia Karpova, Comradely Objects: Design and Material Culture in Soviet Russia, 1960s-80s (2020).

H-Net/H-Material Culture , 2022

https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=55893