Born In Minsk

#b-min_2:

Masha Bruskina (Bruskin) was born in Minsk, in the Soviet Union, in 1924. Born into a Jewish family she was forced to live in the Minsk ghetto with her mother soon after the arrival of the German Army in July 1941.
Although only seventeen Masha, an ardent member of the Communist Party, joined the Minsk resistance movement. She volunteered as a nurse at the hospital in the Polytechnic Institute, that had been set up to care for wounded members of the Red Army. As well as caring for the soldiers she helped them escape by smuggling into the hospital civilian clothing and false identity papers.
One of the patients informed on Masha and on 14th October she was arrested by the German authorities. She was tortured for several days but refused to give the names of other members of her group.
In order to frighten the people of Minsk into submission, the commander of the 707th Infantry Division, decided to hold a public hanging. On 26th October 1941, Masha Bruskina and two other members of the resistance, 16 year old Volodia Shcherbatsevich and First World War veteran, Kiril Trus, were executed in front of the gates of a local yeast factory.
 
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWbruskina.htm

#b-min_3:

Lev Izrailovich Volshtein
(b. 1908) Born in Minsk (Belorussia). Studied at Leningrad Academy of Arts/Institute of Proletarian Visual Arts 1925-30. Active in Leningrad. Began exhibiting 1930. Important shows include Artists of the Russian Federation over Fifteen Years, Leningrad, 1932; All-Union Art Exhibition, Moscow, 1947. Taught at Leningrad Art Tekhnikum 1932-34; Repin Institute 1946-48. Also a graphic artist. Died 1980s.
www.autowrite.plus.com/artists.html

#b-min_4:

David Sarnov

Born in Minsk in 1891, is an acknowledged pioneer of radio broadcasting in America. His chairmanship of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Corporation was followed by taking over of the world-famous gramophone company His Master´s Voice. During World War II as a Brigadier General, Sarnov became communications adviser to General (later President) Eisenhower. Died in 1971
http://minsk.usembassy.gov/html/us_remembers.html

#b-min_7:

Dorophey Bokhan
http://www.rkc.lt/paveldas/bokhan/bokbioe.html
Along with Viachiaslav Bogdanovich (1878-1941) Dorophey Bokhan is the most important figure in Russian literary and public life of Vilnius in period between two wars. Poet, critic, essayist was born in Minsk, studied in Polotsk military school, graduated from military college in Petersburg, served in artillery. Since the middle of ninetieth of XIX century he devoted himself to journalism.

Program of poetry party
organized by D. Bokhan. 1930      In different newspapers and in poems collection "From Polish Poetry" (Minsk, 1905) he published many translations of Polish verses and prose. In Vilnius he issued a book "Adam Mickevich. Biographical essay" (1911) with translations of well known sonnets "Bakhchisarai" and "Ruins of Castle in Balaklava". The same publishing house "Editor" published biography of T. Shevchenko compiled by Bokhan. In December of 1920 he with his family escaped from Smolensk to Vilnius belonging at that time to Poland. Here he actively participated in Russian organizations, arranged different lectures and literary parties, contributed himself to "Vilenskoje utro" ("Vilnius Morning"), "Nasha zhizn" ("Our Life"), "Nashe vremia" ("Our Time"), "Russkoe slovo" ("Russian Word") newspapers.. He was a publishing redactor of "Iskra" ("The Spark") newspaper (in 1936-1937 it became "Novaja Iskra" - "New Spark"), of Belorussian, Russian and Ukrainian magazine "Narodnaja niva" ("People's Field"), of literary monthly magazine "Utes" ("The Rock", 1931), participated in Russian press of Warsaw. His daughter Sophia Bokhan played in public with his verses, stories and essays. In his traditionally arranged stories, poems, essays, lectures and notes Bokhan propagandized fundamental values of Russian culture, criticized Bolshevik cultural politic and avantguard artistic explorations associated with social experiments. In 1939 Soviet authorities arrested him. Then he got to Polish army commanded by general V. Anders and was killed in it's ranks defending oilfields in Iran and Iraq against German troops.

#b-min_8:

WLADYSLAW STRZEMINSKI
http://www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/os_strzeminski_wladyslaw

Polish art theoretician, painter, designer of "functional" prints, pioneer of the Constructivist avant-garde of the 1920s and 1930s, creator of the theory of Unism. Born 1893 Minsk in Belarus; died 1952 in Lodz.
Between 1911 and 1914, Strzeminski studied at St. Petersburg's Military College of Engineering. He was heavily wounded in 1916 while serving as an officer of the engineering corps during World War I, and eventually lost an arm and a leg because of the wounds. In 1918, he attended classes at the First Free State Workshops (SVOMAS) in Moscow, where he first made contact with Casimir Malevich and Vladimir Tatlin. In 1919 he began working at the Department of Fine Arts (IZO) of the People's Educational Commissariat in Minsk; he also became a member of the Moscow Governing Council for Art and the Artistic Industry. In 1919-1920 he worked with the Government Department of Education in Smolensk, where together with his wife, Katarzyna Kobro, he lead an artistic workshop (IZO-studio) and additionally joined the UNOVIS group. Strzeminski presented his Constructivist works at exhibitions in Moscow, Ryazan, and Vitebsk.
In 1921 he settled in Vilnius and began teaching illustration, initially as part of the Lukasinski Military Graduate Seminars and later at the middle school in Vileyka. In 1922-23 and 1925-26 he worked with the periodical "Zwrotnica" ("Junction"), publishing, among other articles, his "Notatki o sztuce rosyjskiej" ("Notes on Russian Art" - 1922, no. 3; 1923, no. 4). In 1923 he worked with Vytautas Kairiukstis in organizing the Exhibition of New Art in Vilnius, which was in effect the starting point for Polish Constructivism. Between 1924 and 1926 he taught drawing in Szczekociny and took a job as a middle school teacher in Brzeziny. Strzeminski was one of the initiators of the GRUPA KUBISTOW KONSTRUKTYWISTOW I SUPREMATYSTOW "BLOK" ("BLOCK" GROUP OF CUBISTS, CONSTRUCTIVISTS, AND SUPREMATISTS (1924-26) and two groups which built on this organization's program, namely PRAESENS (1926-29) and A.R. (1929-36). "Blok" the magazine published Strzeminski's texts promoting principles of avant-garde art, and Strzeminski was a participant in all domestic and international appearances/exhibitions of the Polish Constructivist avant-garde.
In 1927, a solo exhibition of Strzeminski's work was organized in Warsaw. That same year the artist presented his work at the Machine Age Exhibition in New York. In 1927-1928 he taught at the vocational middle school in the town of Koluszki, where he devised an original curriculum for the training of designers. In 1931 he settled in Lodz where he became a highly active member of the local chapter of the Association of Polish Visual Artists. Strzeminski used the pages of the periodical "Forma", the association's official publication, to disseminate his views about new art, among other ways by entering into a debate about Leon Chwistek's idea of "strefizm" (loosely translated as "Zonism"). Strzeminski was also headmaster of the Public School of Continued Education, within which he pursued his novel concept of "functional" printing. In 1932 he became a member of the international, Paris-based Abstraction-Création group. Strzeminski was also an animator for and co-creator of the International Collection of Modern Art, made available to the public at the Museum of Art in Lodz in 1931, and in 1932 received a Lodz Municipal Arts Prize. In 1933 he initiated the creation of the GRUPA PLASTYKOW NOWOCZESNYCH (GROUP OF MODERN VISUAL ARTISTS), which brought together representatives of avant-gardes of various provenance and profile.
In 1945 he became a lecturer at the State Higher School of the Visual Arts (SHSVA) in Lodz, of which has was also a co-founder. He continued to pour his energies into this institution and one of his achievements was to create a Department of Spatial Visual Arts. That same year he donated much of his output to the Museum of Art in Lodz. In 1948 Strzeminski designed the Neo-Visual Room, which is today an integral part of the museum's permanent exhibition.. In 1950 Strzeminski was stripped of his position at the SHSVA by decision of the Ministry of Culture and Art for failing to respect Socialist Realist doctrine.
In 1956/57 Lodz and Warsaw hosted posthumous exhibitions of the work of Strzeminski and his wife, Katarzyna Kobro. The artist's book titled "Teoria widzenia" ("A Theory of Vision"), written around 1948-1949, was published in 1958. A collected volume titled "Wladyslaw Strzeminski. In Memoriam" (Lodz, 1988) and "Materials from a session organized in 1993 by the Museum of Art in Lodz on the 100th anniversary of the artist's birth" (Lodz, 1994) were devoted to Strzeminski's lifetime achievements as an artist. In 1993 the Museum of Art in Lodz organized a monographic exhibition of the artist's oeuvre. In addition, Strzeminski's works were shown at numerous international exhibitions of avant-garde art, including CONSTRUCTIVISM IN POLAND 1923-1936. BLOK - PRAESENS - A.R. at the Museum Folkwang Essen, Rijksmuseum Kroller-Müller Otterlo, Stuttgart 1973.
Strzeminski's creative stance was a product of Cubist, Purist, and Neoplasticist influences. Constructivism was particularly important in shaping his concept of art, though at the same time he opposed the Constructivist-supported motto stating that art should be subject to social utility. Instead, Strzeminski defended the idea of the autonomy of art and the right to "laboratory conditions" in artistic experimentation. The artist accepted the need for blending the order inherent in art with the order of social reality, but viewed art as having a modeling role in relation to all forms of human activity.
He pursued his aims by painting canvasses, as well as by creating typographic schemes, producing architectural and urban designs, and engaging in art criticism and theorization. His essays titled UNIZM W MALARSTWIE / UNISM IN PAINTING (1928), KOMPOZYCJA PRZESTRZENI, OBLICZENIA RYTMU CZASOPRZESTRZENNEGO / COMPOSITION OF SPACE, CALCULATIONS OF SPACE-TIME RHYTHM (1932, written jointly with Katarzyna Kobro) constituted a lecture on the principles of creating paintings, sculptures, and architectural structures that would be integrated with each other and constitute a harmonious whole; DRUK FUNKCJONALNY / FUNCTIONAL PRINTING (1935) on the other hand discussed the principles of modern printing. Strzeminski designed the typographic scheme for all the publications of the "a.r." library, introducing a styling similar to visual poetry.
He also made a fundamental contribution to the history of the world avant-garde through his theory of Unism. In 1927 he formulated the theory in relation to painting, and subsequently extended its theoretical application to sculpture, architecture, and typography in the years 1931-1933. The general principle in Unism, relating to all forms of artistic _expression, was the requirement for "unity between the artwork and the place of its creation". In painting this meant accenting the complete autonomy of the painting as a flat quadrilateral defined by a frame and thus separated from its surroundings, and thus fully enclosed within itself. At the base of Unism lay the principle of the complete unity of paintings based on laws relating solely to them, paintings constituting optical unities deprived of all contrasts. Strzeminski's explorations into the full integration of the painting's surface through elimination of any forms of dynamism or illusion of space echoed the post-Suprematist compositions of the 1920s, abstract works in which balance was ensured through appropriate distribution of biomorphic forms and the mutual relations between colors. Further attempts at melting forms and background into an organic, static whole lead to a limitation of chromatic range and to the combining of colors of equal intensities (KOMPOZYCJA UNISTYCZNA 9 / UNISTIC COMPOSITION 9, 1931).
This principle of unity manifested itself differently in a series of architectural compositions dating from the years 1926-1930. In these, Strzeminski applied a system of proportions based on the golden division to the size of the canvas and to the geometric elements in the composition. In his mature works of the 1930s the artist achieved a degree of optical homogeneity by applying monochromatic colors and composing strictly of protruding, textural elements arranged in uniform, repeating patterns, as in his KOMPOZYCJA UNISTYCZNA 14 / UNISTIC COMPOSITION 14 of 1934. The central part of this canvas is filled with the largest forms, which draw the eyes of the viewer. Perception gradually encompasses larger parts of the canvas covered with abstract shapes that decline in size as the eye ventures closer to the frame of the painting. A somewhat different tendency is manifested in Strzeminski's seascapes (MORZE. PEJZAZ / THE SEA - A LANDSCAPE, 1933), cityscapes of Lodz (PEJZAZ LODZKI / LODZ LANDSCAPE, 1931), and in his figural compositions of the 1930s. These were small, intimate oil paintings created by the artist for relaxation, in which the primary role was assigned to the spatial relations between organically-shaped planes of color and a bending line running its own course, both of which alluded to forms in nature. These works express Strzeminski's desire to analyze the laws of visual perception.
During the German occupation of Poland, Strzeminski created a series of expressive drawings depicting the Gehenna of war (BIALORUS ZACHODNIA / WESTERN BELARUS, DEPORTACJE / DEPORTATIONS, WOJNA DOMOWA / CIVIL WAR, TWARZE / FACES, PEJZAZE I MARTWE NATURY / LANDSCAPES AND STILL LIFES, TANIE JAK BLOTO / CHEAP AS MUD, RECE, KTORE NIE Z NAMI / HANDS THAT ARE NOT WITH US, MOIM PRZYJACIOLOM ZYDOM / TO MY JEWISH FRIENDS). In 1948 and 1949 Strzeminski produced a series of solaristic paintings referred to as "afterimages of light." These works record optical impressions caused by looking at the sun (POWIDOK SLONCA / SUN'S AFTERIMAGE, 1948). Also dating from 1949 are drawings and paintings that constituted the artist's attempt at creating a new formula of realistic representation. His formula is clearly of avant-garde provenance, but at the same time remains in line with Socialist Realist tenets on subject matter.
Irena Kossowska
Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Science
December 2001

#b-min_9:

Morris Kantor
http://www.askart.com/artist/K/morris_kantor.asp?ID=27138
This biography from the Archives of AskART:
"Morris Kantor was born in Minsk, Russia in 1896, and moved to New York in 1906. Early in his career he experimented with Futurism and Cubism. In 1916 he studied landscape painting with Homer Boss (1882-1956). And it was in 1928, after returning to NYC from a year in Paris, that Kantor developed a style in which he combined realism with fantasy, oft ... "  

#b-min_10:

Giedroyc, Jerzy
Encyclopedia Britannica Article
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=370408

Russian-born Polish editor and publisher (b. July 27, 1906, Minsk, Russia [now in Belarus]—d. Sept. 14, 2000, Paris, France), saw the political value of literature and, while living in Warsaw, founded (1929) the right-wing magazine Bunt Mlodych (“The Rebellion of the Young�), which later (1937) became Polityka. He left Poland when the Germans invaded (1939), and he eventually settled in Paris, where he founded a publishing

#b-min_11:

Jakub Kolas
From his entry in the Historical Dictionary of Belarus (Zaprudnik, 1998; pp. 135-136): "Author of some of the classics of Belarusan literature, prose writer and poet, teacher, activist of the Rebirth Movement, lexicographer, and academician. Together with Janka Kupala, Jakub (Yakub) Kolas is the founder of modern Belarusan literature. His real name was Kanstancin Miskievich. The pseudonym Kolas means "ear of grain," indicating the poet's connection with the land and the lot of the peasantry. There was also a practical side to his pseudonym--most of the prerevolutionary writers used pen names for reasons of safety (many are best known under their assumed names)."  "Kolas graduated from the Niasvizh Teachers' Seminary (1902). He was imprisoned for three years (1908-1911) for activism in the cause of opening Belarusan schools, which had been prohibited by the tsarist government. Kolas contributed poetry and short stories to Nasha Niva, and authored two classical narrative poems, Novaya ziamla (New Land) and Symon -- muzyka (Symon the musician). In Soviet Belarus, he was active as a teacher and scholar. For his literary work, he was awarded the honorific title of People's Poet in 1926. In 1929, he was elected vice president of the Belarusan Academy of Sciences.." "Kolas' early literary works portray a stark picture of the social deprivation and economic hardship that the peasantry had to endure, but his characters are rebellious. The two narrative poems mentioned above depict daily country life in colorful detail and also reflect strivings for freedom and cultural emancipation. Novaya ziamla is justly called an encyclopedia of Belarusan life. In the latter period of his literary career, Kolas was affected by the ideological constraints of Stalinism, which damaged the artistic quality of his works and undermined their credibility. The memory of Jakub Kolas is preserved in several museums. The most comprehensive is in Mensk, where the writer spent most of his life." From his entry in the Historical Dictionary of Belarus (Zaprudnik, 1998; pp. 135-136): "Author of some of the classics of Belarusan literature, prose writer and poet, teacher, activist of the Rebirth Movement, lexicographer, and academician. Together with Janka Kupala, Jakub (Yakub) Kolas is the founder of modern Belarusan literature. His real name was Kanstancin Miskievich. The pseudonym Kolas means "ear of grain," indicating the poet's connection with the land and the lot of the peasantry. There was also a practical side to his pseudonym--most of the prerevolutionary writers used pen names for reasons of safety (many are best known under their assumed names)."  "Kolas graduated from the Niasvizh Teachers' Seminary (1902). He was imprisoned for three years (1908-1911) for activism in the cause of opening Belarusan schools, which had been prohibited by the tsarist government. Kolas contributed poetry and short stories to Nasha Niva, and authored two classical narrative poems, Novaya ziamla (New Land) and Symon -- muzyka (Symon the musician). In Soviet Belarus, he was active as a teacher and scholar. For his literary work, he was awarded the honorific title of People's Poet in 1926. In 1929, he was elected vice president of the Belarusan Academy of Sciences.." "Kolas' early literary works portray a stark picture of the social deprivation and economic hardship that the peasantry had to endure, but his characters are rebellious. The two narrative poems mentioned above depict daily country life in colorful detail and also reflect strivings for freedom and cultural emancipation. Novaya ziamla is justly called an encyclopedia of Belarusan life. In the latter period of his literary career, Kolas was affected by the ideological constraints of Stalinism, which damaged the artistic quality of his works and undermined their credibility. The memory of Jakub Kolas is preserved in several museums. The most comprehensive is in Mensk, where the writer spent most of his life."

#b-min_12:

Bashka Paeff
This biography from the Archives of AskART:
"This biography has been provided by Patti Cassidy, Researcher
Bashka Paeff (1893-1979) was known as the "Subway sculptor" because of the
pieces she modeled while working her way through art school at the Park
Street T station in Boston.
She was born in Minsk, Russia and moved to Boston with her parents as a child. She studied a ... "   (showing 358 of 702 characters).
Boston-area sculptor Bashka Paeff was born in Minsk, Russia, but came to the U.S. as an infant. She attended the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts. 
Russian-born Jew who supported her studies by selling tokens in the Park Street subway station. She crafted the charming Boy and Bird Fountain (1934), also near Arlington Street.
www.bwht.org/stop3and4.html

#b-min_13:

David Noevich Goberman
http://tombstones.molinos.ru/autor-eng.html
The album marks the appoaching 90th birthday of David Noevich Goberman, an artist and an art critic. He was born in Minsk, in 1912. In 1939 he graduated from the Architectural Faculty at the Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture of the Academy of Arts. He studied painting under N. A. Tyrsa. The range of D. Goberman's artistic endeavour is extraordinarily wide. First of all, it is painting that laconically reflects the artist's peculiar view-point and his attitude towards human beings, nature and the world of material objects. Then, he devoted himself to decorative arts. Besides, he is a well-known art critic, the author of numerous books on different visual aspects of the Ukrainian and Moldavian folklore.
David Goberman is greatly interested in Jewish art, i. e. in old carved Jewish tombstones. His survey of tombstones' stelae and the pictures he had taken of them help preserve for posterity numerous memorials that disappeared during last five decades.
The materials the author had published and the photo displays that took place in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Kishinev and New York present the sphere of Jewish ethno-artistic culture that hasn't been studied enough before.

#b-min_14:

Marc Klionsky:  Artist
born in Minsk in 1927
Marc Klionsky
by Russell, John , Weber, Nicholas Fox

This richly illustrated volume comprehensively explores Russian-born Marc Klionsky's life and work, from his years in the Soviet Union through his life in New York today. His exceptional talent and thorough technical training led to a distinguished art career in the Soviet Union, but his success did not allay his desire to experience the self-determination only a democracy could provide. Together with his family, Klionsky emigrated to the United States in 1974, and cultivated elements of lyricism, surrealism, and representation never seen in his previous paintings. Anticipated to become the benchmark reference on Klionsky and his renowned achievements in portraiture, this monograph features stunning colour plates and captivating documentary materials