The anniversary of a gifted artist with Ossetian roots, who devoted 66 of his 95 years to serving the Belarusian land and Belarusian art, is a reason to remember one more date on the final day of the previous year, which was marked by the Year of Historical Memory.
Nikolai Timofeyevich Gutiev was born on January 31, 1912 in Rostov-on-Don (Russia). He described his family as follows: "Great-grandmother was half Cossack, half khokhlushka; grandfather was too “half-hearted” Polish-German, had two university degrees, spoke six languages. Her mother was a Polish-German, had an excellent musical education, sang well and played the piano. Father Timofey Gutiev is a full-blooded Ossetian neurologist who enjoyed great authority in his native land, in Ossetia."
After finishing school, together with the matriculation certificate, Nikolai received a diploma in electrical engineering. He got a job, joined the staff of the art department of the large magazine and newspaper publishing house “Kolkhoznaja Pravda”, where he improved his skills under the guidance of an experienced graphic artist E. Ausberg. In 1938 he successfully graduated from the Rostov Art College and the only one who received a referral to the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (now the St. Petersburg State Academic Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after I.Ya. Repin).
However, N. Gutiev did not manage to study in Leningrad: he was late for the admission exams and was enlisted to the army. Participated in the Soviet-Finnish war. After his discharge, he had a desire to start painting. But once more, fate had other plans, and the Great Patriotic War broke out.
From the first days of the war Gutiev was at the front. In the autumn of 1941, among the soldiers of the 19th Army, he was surrounded and taken prisoner. Then there was Nazi concentration camp near Polotsk. There the machine gunner Gutiev met the artist Nikolai Obrynba. In August 1942, having forged documents, together with a group of daredevils, he escaped from captivity and ended up in the Lepel guerilla brigade in the Vitebsk region.
Partisans-artists Nikolay Gutiev (on the right) and Nikolay Obrynba.
Lepel guerilla zone, 1943
N. Gutiev was a machine gunner and a reconnaissance scout who took part in all combat operations. Hot on the heels of doing sketches in pencil, watercolor, ink. He produced sharply humorous posters and flyers as well as a gallery of portraits of his fellow soldiers. With the aid of a kite, posters and flyers were cut out of linoleum, duplicated at a partisan printing facility, given to the local populace, and plastered on homes, sending the Nazis into a state of terror. The appearance of leaflets on the territory occupied by the fascists had a huge resonance. True, both the population and the Hitlerites believed that the partisans had a connection with the Mainland and scattered printed products from airplanes. The fascists did not know how it was possible to gather information so quickly and issue such a large number of leaflets on the subject of yesterday's events. The fact that the partisans have their own printing house in the forest, they could not even think. And here is what the artist N. Gutiev himself said about this: "...Good news, evil caricature, like nothing else, raised the mood of people. When you make leaflets, our contacts come from the occupied villages and deliver them. At first, I did about ten–fifteen pieces manually. And when the printing house started working, things got more fun. They watched a movie at the Nazi garrison, they did the lights on in the hall, and they could see the walls were full of leaflets-caricatures of Hitler."
Artist's sketches in the hot pursuit of combat operations
Thus, two professional artists, Gutiev and Obrynba, established creative work in the squad. Gradually accumulated a solid arsenal of visual genres. There were even pictures of battle scenes. All this gave rise to the legend of the Partisan art gallery, which was jokingly called the "Forest Tretyakov Gallery". In 1943, the Partisan Art Gallery was flown to Moscow and displayed for a long time in the Tretyakov Gallery.
N. Gutiev. Partisan airfield
Portraits of military comrades created by N. Gutiev in a partisan detachment. Photo from the exposition of the Ushachsky Museum of National Glory
After the end of the war, N. T. Gutiev settled in Minsk. His old dream came true, he started working in the State Publishing House of the BSSR, headed the editorial office of decoration (1944–1972). In 1960, despite his age, he graduated from the Moscow Polygraphic Institute (now the I. Fedorov Moscow State University of Printing). His drawings were published in the works of Y. Kolas, I. Shamyakin, K. Chorny, as well as works by A. Pushkin, N. Gogol, L. Tolstoy, W. Shakespeare and others. The artist worked extensively and fruitfully on illustrating Belarusian folk tales, trying to give the illustrations a unique national flavor, making extensive use of ethnographic and folklore material.
Being a master of a wide creative range, N. T. Gutiev created several graphic series dedicated to peaceful, creative work. But the main theme in the master's work remained the partisan theme. The series of monogravures "Belarus – kraj partizanski", "Partizanskije budni". The collection of partisan poetry "Lyasnyja Pesni", decorated with guerilla sketches by Nikolai Timofeyevich, also became widely known.
Design of the collection of poetry of Belarusian partisans "Lyasnaja Pesnia" (Mn., 1974)
N.T. Gutiev was not only a creative worker, but also a public figure, an experienced teacher. His paintings, cartoons, posters, and books illustrated by him were repeatedly shown at exhibitions in Minsk and other cities. At the same time as working in a leading republican publishing house, N. Gutiev taught the basics of composition at the Graphic Faculty of the Belarusian State Theater and Art Institute (now the Belarusian State Academy of Arts). Among his students were well-known today E. Los, V. Sharangovich, V. Gromyka, G. Poplavskij, A. Demarin, N. Seleshchuk, Yu. Savich, V. Slavuk.
The seventies of the last century were the most significant in the life of the artist. At that time, the best printing specialists came to Belarus from other union republics. We went to study the experience of the masters of the oldest publishing house. In those years, Nikolai Timofeyevich was the first deputy chairman of the Union of Artists of the Republic, a member of the Board of the Union of Artists of the USSR, and was engaged in journalism. His informative articles were published in the magazine "Iskusstvo", the newspapers "Sovetskaja Belorussija", "Vechernij Minsk" and others.
For his bravery during the hard times of war, the partisan artist was awarded the II degree Order of the Patriotic War, the medal "Partisan of the Patriotic War" I degree and other awards.
Award list of N. Gutiev. Photo from the resource created by the Publishing House "Belarus Today" and the National Archive of Belarus
Nikolai Timofeyevich Gutiev, a descendant of the Ossetians, the artist, during the difficult times of the Great Patriotic War, equated a pen and pencil to a bayonet, and after the Victory, with his talent and creativity, tirelessly contributed to preserving the national feat in the memory of posterity.
For more information about the life and creative activity of the artist-partisan, Honored Artist of the Republic of Belarus N.T. Gutiev, please refer to the information resources of the National Library of Belarus, including the online encyclopedia "Belarus in Persons and Events". Two documentaries were made about him; the artist's personal memoirs were published in the newspaper "Kultura"." (2014, № 26, 27).
The article is prepared by the Bibliography Research Department.
