Introduction: Soviet Temporal and Material Cultures in Dialogue

Abstract

21 January 1924, 6.50 (Figure 0.1). In a red-painted, square wooden board, Vasyl’ Iermilov carved the exact date and time of Vladimir Il’ich Lenin’s death. 1 In fact, throughout 1924, the constructivist Ukrainian artist created a series of “memorial plaques.” In this one, the indentations left by the engraving of the numbers reveal a second layer, another square rendered in a darker shade of red. Fringing both of them is a thin white border and, finally, an imposing black frame, communicating tragedy and mourning. 2 In the central square, in the empty space alongside the numbers, “January” is spelled out in Ukrainian (sichnia) – appearing as if stamped. 3 This tension between emptiness and presence is a beautiful metaphor of the void left by the death of Lenin and, at the same time, of the construction of his memory. A series of small glittering metal nail heads – a material Iermilov often used in his compositions in the 1920s – also frame the numbers and the central red square. They evoke the role of this “artistic” plaque: not only to commemorate the Bolshevik leader, but also to capture the very instant of his passage beyond time, and to immortalise it in a material form.