Ashes that reached the heart

The life and fate of Mikhail Savitsky

There are people whose presence causes a true awe — both in front of those monstrous trials that fell to their lot, and in front of the personality itself, which did not break and did not lose itself while passing through the circles of hell. Those people on whom faith in God rests, as well as faith in a person who is able to go through the fire of war and the torment of concentration camps — and still keep his or her soul clean. The name of the People’s Artist of Belarus Mikhail Savitsky is one of the first in these ranks.

“An artist is, first of all, the mind, thinking, the ability to see life from a certain angle. A brush, some painting techniques — this is a craft, but not art”

By roads of war

Fighter, witness, herald of truth and its constant defender, Mikhail Savitsky, whose entire birthday has passed only 100 years ago (nothing compared to historical standards!), seems to us today a titan: the artist’s gift and legacy is so colossal, his gaze into the darkest depths of horror is so fearless experienced by the Motherland and humanity as a whole in the twentieth century.
“The very atmosphere of our century causes burning anxiety for the fate of the beautiful planet and its main treasure — man. Each of us is responsible for the future. Because of this responsibility, I have no right to remain silent. I had to witness monstrous crimes”.

Partisans

He was born in 1922 in the Vitebsk Region, in a village with a singing name — Zvenyachi, in a rural family of workers, he dreamed of becoming an artist... He has a sister and three older brothers — with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, all the brothers were called to the front, Mikhail left after them, however, he was the only one who was destined to return... 250 days of the heroic defence of Sevastopol, blocked by the Nazis from the sea and from land, the last battle at the Chersonese lighthouse, where the Red Army and Black Sea sailors grew into the white rocks of the Heracles Peninsula, but did not give up. They were crushed with bombs and heavy artillery: 2,500 air bombs were dropped on the defenders of Chersonese, tens of thousands of artillery shells were fired at them — they held on. Four days without water and bread — until the ammunition ran out. Injury, captivity, transit camps — Bakhchisarai and Nikolaev, where people were literally turned into cattle, mocked and starved, and finally deported to Germany — to new circles of hell.

People of the world, stand up for a minute…

In total, Mikhail Savitsky spent 2 years and 9 months in the Nazi death camps: Stalag 326, a prisoner-of-war work camp in Düsseldorf, the wagon factory, where Mikhail Savitsky became a member of a sabotage resistance group: the prisoners had to make the wagons for the Germans, but they spoiled them and at the same time prepared to escape. The group tried to escape to France, but was captured by the Gestapo. Savitsky was to be executed along with his comrades, but the execution was replaced by the Buchenwald extermination camp. Then he was sent to the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, then to Dachau. There was another attempt to escape — and a penal barrack, from which there was only one short road — to the crematorium oven. He was burning in a typhoid fever when the long-awaited release came on April 29th, 1945. Despite being unfit for health service, Savitsky managed to be left in the Red Army, and served until 1947 in Germany and Hungary, where Soviet troops restored order after the capitulation of the Nazis. Decades later, Georgy Kornilov, with whom they escaped from Düsseldorf, asked Savitsky, an already established and well-known master, “Have you drawn any-thing ABOUT IT?” This is how one of the most difficult and famous series in the artist’s work appeared — Numbers on the Heart, which is stored today in the Belarusian State of the Great Patriotic War History. 16 paintings filled with symbolism and documentary at the same time: a story about the horrors committed by the Nazis in concentration camps. Someone tried to express a complaint to the artist — they say, why do you show such terrible things, because the war has already ended. He had something to answer to the sleepy good-heartedness of his contemporaries, to this stern, caustic, unyielding man with eyes blackened with grief, “Some argue that fascism is already history, that it does not need to be reminded of it. But misanthropic ideology exists in different versions today. Like rust, it strikes thinking, especially of young people.”
And he answered — no, not with a word, but with what he mastered impeccably and masterfully: his brush, which did not know how to lie. Documents of the Nuremberg trials, dry lines of protocols, evidence of monstrous atrocities — all this will be read by those who specifically set out to understand what fascism is. And Savitsky created an artistic document of the era, understandable to everyone, and the ashes of hundreds of thousands of those burned alive beat in his heart, tormented by misfortune. His Prisoner 32815 against the backdrop of the Buchenwald gates — an emaciated figure of a young man in a camp jacket, with an iconic face and terrible, implacable eyes, holding his back straight and his chin high — is considered by many to be a self-portrait. But this is a collective image, a statement of unity with all the unconquered Soviet people: the number on the prisoner’s striped uniform differs from the one under which Savitsky was kept by one number. 

In the name of truth

It is also no coincidence that the partisan theme manifested itself in the artist’s work: Savitsky himself was not in the ‘forest army’, but he plunged into the life and memories of people who survived the occupation upon returning to his homeland. The theme of guerrilla warfare was constantly heard in conversations: the wounds were fresh and people talked about painful things — both about exploits and about troubles. The artist’s heart could not help but respond — and in the 1960s, one by one, the Partisans, The Legend of batka Minay, Partisan Madonna, Vitebsk Gates, Oath, Execution paintings appeared... Savitsky almost instantly became one of the icon of the ‘severe style, his paintings were revolutionary at that time, and the same Partisan Madonna, written in 1967, was understood and accepted by far not by everyone and not immediately. The All-Union Exhibition dotted the I’s, after which the canvas received a silver medal of the USSR Academy of Arts and settled in the Tretyakov Gallery, scattered in thousands of reproductions in textbooks and encyclopaedias, and in 1983 appeared on postage stamps.
Having appointed himself a witness and chronicler of human grief, the monstrous cataclysms of the 20th century, Mikhail Savitsky mourned both the war and the tragedy of Chernobyl. Throughout his life he carried the memory of the camp famine and the sacred attitude to bread, admiration for rural labour, a look at the sown field as the most beautiful thing on Earth. 

Partisan Madonna

Whatever he did, it was not for awards — but for the sake of truth. Although the awards were not long in coming. In 1972, Savitsky was awarded the title of People’s Artist of the BSSR, five years later — People’s Artist of the USSR. The artist has four state awards alone — the BSSR, the USSR and Belarus! In 1997, Mikhail Savitsky became the first holder of the Order of Francysk Skaryna. Who deserved it more than him?
According to merit, one should repay the masters during their lifetime, so that after death they will not be ashamed of injustice. During the days of the defence of Sevastopol, Savitsky was twice presented to the Order of the Red Banner and once to the Medal ‘For Courage’, but being in captivity nullified this heroic ‘score’. Only in 1985 he was overtaken by the 2nd class Order of the Patriotic War, and in 2006 the President 
Aleksandr Lukashenko awarded Mikhail Savitsky the highest award — the title of Hero of Belarus, at once repaying both for military prowess, and for unbending will, and for everything done by the artist for his native earth.

“We are people of Christian culture, which is based on ‘you must not murder’, ‘you must not steal’, ‘love your neighbour’… so in our culture the task of an artist is to teach people to hate evil and strive for good”

By Irina Ovsepyan
Open source photos