MITURICH–KHLEBNIKOVS ARTISTIC DYNASTY IN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL TEXTS AND MEMOIRS
Abstract:
The article examines the memoirs of May Petrovich Miturich (1925–2008), a son of the artist P. V. Miturich and an artist himself. The memoirs were written in the years 1995–2002 and cover the whole life of the artist, starting at his earliest childhood. The text consists of 190 small fragments, each with a title of its own, often containing a time indicator. We characterize the image of the author, i. e., verbal self-portrait of M. P. Miturich in various periods of his life, refl ecting various aspects of his personality (childhood, military service, artistical work, teaching, relations with his father, maintaining the memory of Velimir Khlebnikov). The memoirs were actually addressed to Vera Maevna Miturich-Khlebnikova, the daughter of the artist and also an artist. Judging by the charac- teristics of the text, we conclude that the potential audience is much wider: everybody interested in the history of Russia in the 20th century and the history of Russian art of that period. Our stylistic analysis allows us to conclude that the artist’s creativity shows itself in the seemingly strictly documentary genre.