Khardjiev
Khardjiev worked for LEF, a major art publication in Moscow in the early
'30s, and became close to many Soviet avant-gardists. He worked with Malevich
to write his memoirs, and considered himself the historian of a movement
that was destroyed by Stalinism.
Living in a tiny apartment among hundreds of works and thousands of
extraordinary documents, Khardjiev saw many of his friends arrested and
sent to the Gulag. The 89-year-old Khardjiev finally was able to emigrate
to Holland in 1992, and the Gmurzynska Galerie in Cologne managed to transfer
his collection to Germany.
Russian authorities are claiming that an extensive collection of Soviet
avant-garde art, presently on view at Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum on loan
from the Tchaga-Khardjiev Foundation, is a national treasure that was illegally
exported from Russia. The Tchaga-Khardjiev Foundation now holds the estate
of the late writer and art historian Nicolaï Khardjiev and his wife,
Lidia Tchaga. It includes about 1,000 works by Russian avant-garde artists
as well as extensive archival materials.
In 1993 Khardjiev and his wife moved to Amsterdam but the old man did
not manage to adapt to his new existence and lived in almost complete seclusion.
In Amsterdam, Lidia Tchaga's tyrannical temper gradually discouraged friends
from keeping in touch with the couple and she was left to turn to Boris
Abarov, a Russian exile in Holland, to take care of her interests. The
newspaper Le Monde has described Abarov as a profiteer, however,
who sought to gain control of the valuable Tchaga-Khardjiev art collection
by transferring it to a foundation that he would control. In November 1995,
Lidia Tchaga died after a fall from a staircase and Abarov was accused
a few weeks later by Anna Gourevich, a friend of Lidia, of having caused
her death.
At this point, the future of the collection is uncertain. Khardjiev
made no precise inventory, though a 1993 list, made when the collection
was transferred from Moscow to Germany, includes 1,355 works. Among these
are 140 drawings by Malevich as well as his Red Square, plus dozens
of works by Larionov, Gontcharova, Filonov, Lissitsky and Tatlin.
The foundation is now controlled by Michel Privé, a notary who
is in charge of the estate. Privé has denied any suggestion of irregularity,
saying via his lawyer that he needs time to work out the details of the
foundation. The Dutch daily De Volksrant, however, has claimed that
eight Lissitsky gouaches offered for sale by the Gmurzynska Gallery for
$1 million came in fact from the Khardjiev. Privé responded that
certain pieces had to be sold to meet costs.
Now all eyes are turned towards Moscow, where the Russian authorities
seem determined to recover at least the documents relating to the Soviet
avant-garde movement that they claim are of national importance. The fate
of the collection is another complex matter and so far Moscow has not officially
approached Dutch authorities for its restitution.