Exhibition "Artists of Tatarstan:
the image of Syuyumbike - the last queen of the Kazan Khanate on the eve of the 500th anniversary of his birth"

The exhibition "Artists of Tatarstan: the image of Syuyumbike - the last queen of the Kazan Khanate on the eve of the 500th anniversary of the birth", dedicated to the Republic of Tatarstan from the collection of the State Museum of Fine Arts of the Republic of Tatarstan and paintings of artists of Tatarstan, for the first time presents the legendary image of Syuyumbike in a single exhibition space. The date of the Queen’s birth is not known for certain; according to some sources, she was born around 1516. Syuyumbike is the daughter of the Nogai Khan Yusuf Bey, the great-great-granddaughter of the founder of the Nogai Horde Idegei.

The time of her life in Kazan Khan is 1535 - 1551. The fate of the queen became a symbol of the golden age of the historical past of the Tatar people. Her image is covered with symbolism, legends, myths and traditions, associated with him are the ideas about the true beauty of the Tatar woman, about motherhood and love for the motherland.

The image of Syuyumbike is a theme that in the era of both tsarist Russia and Soviet times was closely intertwined with ideology. The milestone for the history of the Tatar people was 1552, the time of the collapse of the Kazan Khanate, which entailed for many centuries and oblivion of spiritual values. Nevertheless, in Russian art, in the wake of interest in Russian history, canvases appeared dedicated to the pages of campaigns and conquests, the vivid personalities of the khanates and states that once existed on the territory of Russia (V. G. Khudyakov “The Captive Queen Suyumbike leaving Kazan”, 1870, Ulyanovsk Art Museum). In the 1920s and 1930s, interest in national history reappeared in Kazan art (I. I. Knyazkov, “The Entry of Ivan the Terrible into the Kazan Kremlin”).

The twentieth century dictated other values and priorities: until the end of the 1960s, in the works of artists of Tatarstan, the national theme and national history were veiled at the level of ethnography and type. Images of the Syuyumbike tower - the architectural symbol of Kazan, the city landscapes of Kasimov (the last refuge of the overthrown lady) - found their place in the paintings of A. I. Trapitsyn, S. O. Lyvin, V. V. Anyutin, R. A. Gilazov, G. L. Eidinova.

The works of Ch. Akhmarov, B. I. Urmanche, I. K. Zaripov, A. I. Tumashev, K. A. Nafikov, R. M. Vakhitov, innovative for the time, appeared in the panorama of historical painting of Tatarstan in the 1970s and 1980s. For these masters, the very atmosphere of reverence for history became decisive in choosing their path in art. The discovery of the khan’s Kazan through the image of Syuyumbike was made by Bucky Urmanche in the unfading sculptural portrait of the queen, or in his graphic work (collection of the Pushkin Museum of the RT).

Ildar Zaripov. Syuyumbike

The Central Asian East left an imprint on the art of R. M. Vakhitov. The techniques of artistic stylization under the archaic of oriental miniatures are manifested in the flatness of the composition, locality and openness of color spots, the absence of a horizon line. A new stage in understanding the national theme begins at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s. The work of F. G. Khalikov begins with the study of antiquities, Tatar history. The artist’s works are characterized by authenticity, a detailed development of the theme, and in style it is close to the traditions of Russian historical painting (I. Repin, V. Surikov).

The modern appeal to the image of Syuyumbike is directed through the prism of the conditional, postmodern language of the so-called “Muslim avant-garde”, abstractionism, conceptualism, primitive techniques, aesthetics of the art of shamail. Such masters as EG Golubtsov, Sh. M. Shaidullin, R. A. Kildibekov, A. R. Ilyasova, R. A. Kildibekov, F. R. Valiullin, M. Sh. Khaziev, work in this vein. V.P. Arshinov, R.G. Shamsutdinov, N. Nakkash, Z. Biktasheva.

The exhibition runs until September 26, 2016.