MINER'S THEME IN ALEXANDER DEINEKA'S MAGAZINE GRAPHICS OF THE MID-1920s ( THE MAGAZINE «AT THE BENCH»)

Abstract

The article discusses the pictures made by Alexander Deineka and published in the magazine «At the bench» in the mid-1920s as a visual source of historical information about the miner's Donbass period of the NEP. Close attention to the contemporary events allowed the artist to use a method of observation inaccessible to historians, expanding the possibilities of studying that historical period. The author of the article for the first time made an attempt to analyze the graphic series «In the Donbass» not as an art cycle reflecting the artist’s creative search, but as an illustrative material telling about mining workdays and important issues related to the process of restoration of the coal region and the increasing pace of its industrial development. The research methodology is based on the analysis of the plot content of these visual sources in the context of certain issues of industrial, social, and cultural development of the mining region in the mid-1920s.