Vladimir Semyonovich Kemenov (; 2 June 1908 – 14 June 1988) was a Soviet art historian and statesman who headed the

VOKS VOKS (an acronym for the Russian ''Vsesoiuznoe Obshchestvo Kul'turnoi Sviazi s zagranitsei'' — Всесоюзное общество культурной связи с заграницей, All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Co ...

for the USSR in the 1940s.

Life and career

He was born in Yekaterinoslav (now Dnipro). In 1940, he succeeded Viktor Smirnov as chairman of VOKS ("Vsesoiuznoe Obshchestvo Kul'turnoi Sviazi s zagranitsei" — Всесоюзное общество культурной связи с заграницей — All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries), a propaganda organization created in 1925 and restructured in 1958.

VOKS also often served as a convenient 'roof' for operations of both branches of Soviet intelligence, whose residents and operatives used opportunities provided by VOKS to establish and maintain contacts in intellectual, scientific and government circles. These contacts were, for the most part, unaware that they were dealing not with 'cultural representatives' and diplomats, but with intelligence officers.

In 1944,

Mihail Sadoveanu Mihail Sadoveanu (; occasionally referred to as Mihai Sadoveanu; November 5, 1880 – October 19, 1961) was a Romanian novelist, short story writer, journalist and political figure, who twice served as acting head of state for the communis ...

hosted official Soviet envoys Kemenov and

Andrey Vyshinsky Andrey Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky (russian: Андре́й Януа́рьевич Выши́нский; pl, Andrzej Wyszyński) ( – 22 November 1954) was a Soviet politician, jurist and diplomat. He is known as a state prosecutor of Joseph ...

in Romania shortly before he became president of the ARLUS "Literary and Philosophical Section."Cioroianu, ''Pe umerii lui Marx'', p.121-123, 126–128, 145–146 On June 23, 1945, Kemenov wrote the Soviet National Council of Foreign Affairs to request that the Soviet Union send artists to the United States and United Kingdom; the request met little interest. In 1947, Kemenov joined Alexander Fadeyev in asking the USSR to invite American writer John Steinbeck to visit; the Kremlin declined. In 1948, Andrei Denisov succeeded Kemenov as chairman through 1957. In 1958, VOKS became the Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship and Cultural Contacts (SSOD), itself disbanded in 1992 following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. In 1950, Kemenov was deputy director of the Institute of Art History. He died in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

, and was buried in the

Kuntsevo Cemetery The Kuntsevo Cemetery (russian: Ку́нцевское кла́дбище, kúntsevkoye kládbishche) is a cemetery servicing Kuntsevo, Moscow. It is located on the bank of the Setun River, to the south of the Mozhaisk Highway (the continuation ...

Works

In 1947, Kemenov published an article "Features of Two Cultures" in English, French, German, and Russian that caught wide attention during early years of the Cold War.

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Arthur Meier Schlesinger Jr. (; born Arthur Bancroft Schlesinger; October 15, 1917 – February 28, 2007) was an American historian, social critic, and public intellectual. The son of the influential historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. and a s ...

noted that Kemenov had attacked artists

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

, Henry Moore,

Georgia O'Keeffe Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American modernist artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been called the "Mother of Ame ...

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...

among others. In a 1950 article, Kemenov defended Social Realism and Marxist–Leninist theory of history and attacked bourgeois art historians in a manner "lurid and angry." * "Aspects of Two Cultures" (aka "Features of Two Cultures"), ''Voks Bulletin'' (1947) * "Against Reactionary Bourgeois Art and Art History" ("Protiv burzhuazanogo iskusstiva i iskusstovnaiia") (1951) * ''Vasily Surikov, 1848–1916'' (1970) with Vasiliĭ Ivanovich Surikov * ''Velázquez in Soviet Museums: Analysis and Interpretation of the Paintings in the Context of His Oeuvre'' (1977)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kemenov, Vladimir 1908 births 1988 deaths People from Dnipro Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Full Members of the USSR Academy of Arts Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Recipients of the USSR State Prize Russian art critics Russian art historians Russian diplomats Soviet art critics Soviet art historians Soviet diplomats Burials at Kuntsevo Cemetery