In 1929, Yosef Veniaminovich began working with the Kyiv Film Factory, where he met the legendary Dovzhenko. The collaboration was more than fruitful. Working on film sets and posters, Yosef Veniaminovich established himself as a recognized specialist in his field. He became the author of posters known to all Soviet film lovers for such films as "On the Banks of Rovumi," "Son of Zorro" (both 1928), "The Overseer's Whip" (1930), and "Khabarda!" (1931).

At the end of the 1930s, relative creative freedom came to an end. In cinema, the time came for completely talentless ideologized films, for the advertising of which one had to draw equally false posters.

And here an amazing incident occurred in the artist's life. In 1938, on a train, Yosef Veniaminovich met a Jew, an agronomist from a Jewish collective farm in the Kherson region. Jews on the land – this thought incredibly captivated the artist. Having come to visit the Jewish peasants, Kuzkovsky was even more surprised. Before his eyes, strong and tanned Jews defeated a team of Don Cossacks in sports competitions! They brought papakhas and sharovary as gifts to the Jewish collective farmers, which the locals immediately tried on. Thus Kuzkovsky's first famous paintings appeared – "Meeting with a Jewish Agronomist of a Jewish Collective Farm" and "Competition at the Collective Farm."

In 1941, these paintings, along with many others created by that time, were exhibited at the Kyiv House of Artists in the author's personal exhibition. All of them burned in a fire at the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War.

When the war with the Nazis broke out, Yosef Veniaminovich rushed to the military commissariat – he wanted to volunteer for the war. The former deserter was told that he would be called when needed. Never waiting for the call, Yosef Veniaminovich evacuated eastward with his wife. They reached Makhachkala, then Tashkent.

In Uzbekistan, the famous artist was offered any city of his choice. He chose Margelan – a town far from the capital, but with an incredibly poetic name. It turned out that, aside from the name, there was nothing poetic about the city. In this terrible place, the Ingush who had been exiled there were slowly dying.

Yosef Veniaminovich began working for the "TASS Windows" in Margelan. His creations reflected the heroic struggle of USSR residents against Hitler's hordes. Then came a move to Fergana and work on the Uzbek series of paintings: "Joyful News," "In the Teahouse," "Singing with Plates," "Beggars," "Shakhimardan."

Yosef Veniaminovich, who deeply grieved the tragedy of the Jewish people, also painted such canvases in Uzbekistan as "Action," "Don't Shoot!," "Execution," "Where Are You Taking Me?"; he began working on a sketch for a painting depicting the mass extermination of Jews by the Germans.

At the end of the war, the question of returning arose. The Kuzkovsky family didn't want to go to Kyiv – walking through the city where acquaintances and loved ones had perished was beyond their strength. Riga attracted them with its "European character," which Yosef Veniaminovich mentioned upon arrival to the secretary of the Latvian Artists' Union. The secretary's face changed, and he then spent a long time trying to send the incautious Kuzkovsky to Liepāja. In Riga, post-war sentiments were not only anti-Semitic but distinctly anti-Jewish. Once on public transport, Olga Davidovna, Yosef Veniaminovich's wife, heard: "Just think! We hoped we had finally gotten rid of them, and here they come again!"

In Riga, to earn a living, Yosef Veniaminovich continued to paint Soviet heroes and workers in the spirit of socialist realism. He also worked extensively on illustrating works by Tolstoy, Lermontov, Nikolai Ostrovsky, Boris Polevoy, Emmanuel Kazakevich, and many others. And in his free time from work, he continued creating his grandiose canvas about the destruction of the Jewish community, begun during evacuation. Deciding to make an allusion to the biblical story of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, he titled the painting: "If I Forget This..." – as in King David's Psalms: "If I forget you, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill."

When the time came to show the painting to a high commission from Moscow that had come to Riga to examine the achievements of Latvian artists, a scandal erupted. The commission was indignant, and Kuzkovsky was branded a Jewish bourgeois nationalist. The situation was only defused by the intervention of People's Artist of the Latvian SSR Karlis Miesnieks, who later got into serious trouble for defending the "Jewish nationalist." The painting was miraculously saved, though not immediately. However, as expected, the censors did not approve the title. The new one – "Babi Yar" – was also soon deemed nationally Jewish, so they were only allowed to call it something completely neutral: "The Last Journey."

Kuzkovsky was deeply troubled by the profanation of his creativity. Although creating portraits of leaders allowed him to maintain financial stability and, no less importantly, served as a kind of protective charter from excessive attention from the Chekists, the artist still had breakdowns. Once, just a couple of days before submitting another "Lenin," he tore the painting to shreds. His wife barely managed to convince him to quickly paint a copy of the destroyed work – if anyone had found out about this outburst, they would have been sent to Siberia.

On May 14, 1948, Israel's independence was proclaimed. Yosef Veniaminovich rejoiced, although he did not hope that he would ever manage to leave for the homeland of his ancestors. He had an idea: if not Israel, then at least let's move to Birobidzhan! However, discouraging news soon began arriving from there. There was essentially nothing Jewish in Birobidzhan. The Jewish Autonomous Region rather resembled a reservation. Kind people advised Kuzkovsky to forget about this idea once and for all.

According to the memoirs of aliyah activist Basya Zhitnitskaya, whose husband Mark was not only a colleague but also a fellow countryman of the author, many young people returned to the bosom of their people precisely thanks to the canvas "Babi Yar" and other works by Kuzkovsky.

On April 19, 1963, Yosef Kuzkovsky became one of the organizers of a rally in Rumbula Forest. The rally was dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Well-known Riga activist Yosef Schneider made a photocopy of "Babi Yar." The Riga artist's painting became the central element of an obelisk erected at the site of the mass murder of Riga Jews in Rumbula.

Local authorities categorically did not want to perpetuate the memory of Holocaust victims. But the artist decided to fight at all costs. Paints and brushes became his weapons in the struggle against the Soviets' desire to ignore historical truth. In addition to creating works on Jewish themes, Kuzkovsky increasingly immersed himself in public life. Thus, the artist petitioned the republic's leadership to resume the work of Jewish amateur artistic activities, which the authorities of the Latvian SSR had once banned.

In 1967, Yosef Veniaminovich visited the Israeli embassy in Moscow. The meeting with Israelis and Moscow Zionists – Tina Brodetskaya, Lenya Lipkovsky, David Khavkin – made an indelible impression on the Riga resident.

In April 1967, his last personal exhibition in the USSR took place at the Palace of Culture of the VEF factory. The artist decided to take a risk – he hung a series of paintings on Jewish themes: "The Last Journey," "We Will Live," "The Burning Ghetto."

Then came Israel's Six-Day War against a coalition of Arab states. The Kuzkovskys stayed glued to their radio, anxiously listening to news reports. Soviet radio broadcasts joyfully hinted that Israel's days were numbered. But suddenly a miracle happened – the triumphant victory of the Jewish state! In honor of this incredible event, Yosef Veniaminovich painted his legendary canvas "David and Goliath," in which the defeated giant was depicted as an Arab, while little David looked very much like a typical shtetl Jew. During this same period, the artist prepared a linocut called "Transistor" – a genre scene, a hint at how Riga Jews caught news from the Middle East. There was another painting with an image close to Kuzkovsky since childhood – "Stepmother." An evil old woman in a headscarf with crosses, pretending to stroke a child in Jewish clothing, with her other hand painfully gripped the boy, preventing him from escaping.

Israel's victory in the Six-Day War caused a powerful surge of pride in their people among Jews in the Soviet Union. The hospitable home of Yosef Veniaminovich and his wife became the center of Jewish national life in Riga. Jewish activists came to the Kuzkovskys on Shabbats, for all major Jewish holidays, on Israel's Independence Day, and often just dropped by to learn fresh news broadcast on "Kol Israel."

From now on, the artist devoted his main efforts to the struggle of Soviet Jewry for their rights. With the help of Riga activists, Kuzkovsky reproduced his linocuts on Jewish themes, which spread throughout the Union.

After prominent Riga Zionists left for Israel in 1968, nothing held Yosef and Olga Kuzkovsky in the USSR anymore. In spring 1969, the couple finally received an invitation from Yosef Schneider, and after several months of ordeals – the long-awaited permission to leave for Israel. In Riga, the authorities didn't detain the artist, considering it better to get rid of the troublemaker as quickly as possible. Hundreds of people saw the Kuzkovskys off at the station. When the train pulled away from the platform, the song "Haveinu Shalom Aleichem" soared over Riga station.

On August 11, 1969, the Kuzkovskys arrived in Eretz Israel. With his Riga friends, Yosef Veniaminovich visited all the main monuments of Jewish history. He fulfilled private commissions and also received an offer to work as a poster artist for "Maoz," the society for helping Soviet Jewry.

By commission from Golda Elin, an outstanding Israeli public figure, Yosef Kuzkovsky was to draw a series of five posters illustrating the struggle of Soviet Jews for the right to repatriation. He managed, however, to create only one – an illustration of the phrase from the Book of Exodus, "Let my people go!" The poster depicted a barrier of barbed wire in the shape of a hammer and sickle, and behind it – a Jew holding a child in his arms. On the reverse side of the poster distributed by the "Maoz" society, the names of Prisoners of Zion were published.

Well-known Israeli artists Aaron Giladi and Moshe Bar-Nea energetically began organizing Yosef Kuzkovsky's first solo exhibition in Israel. Everything was going as well as possible, but tragedy struck and ruined the plans. One day the artist received the frames he had ordered for his paintings and began carrying them up the stairs by himself. He felt unwell, but didn't stay home and instead went that evening to an event organized by the Association of Immigrants from Latvia, dedicated to the tragedy in Rumbula Forest. The next day Yosef Veniaminovich felt worse and was hospitalized.

On January 4, 1970, Yosef Kuzkovsky passed away. He died in a ward at Sharon Hospital from a heart attack. His solo exhibition opened after his death, on February 21, 1970, at the House of Arts in Tel Aviv. Among the honored guests at the exhibition were Golda Meir and Knesset Chairman Reuven Barkat.

Today, Yosef Kuzkovsky's painting "On the Final Journey" is on permanent display in the Israeli Knesset. His other paintings and posters can be seen in museums in Russia, Norway, and Israel, as well as in private collections.

In his first letter from Israel, Kuzkovsky wrote enthusiastically: "...imagine that I placed my rough hands on the Western Wall and stroked it..." Yosef Veniaminovich's days in Israel were brief. But after the artist "ascended" to his people – he remained with them forever.

21.01.2022



Bibliography and Sources:


Aviva Valk. On the 50th Anniversary of Iosif Kuzkovsky's Death // Etslenu. — 2020. — January (No. 58). — P. 6.

ZIONIST AFFAIRS: Butman G.I. - Leningrad-Jerusalem with a Long Layover: Butman Gilel Israelevich: Memoirs about the GULAG: Database: Authors and Texts. www.sakharov-center.ru.

Zilberman, David. Yosef Kuzkovski: le-zekher ha-aman. (A. Kronberg), 1977. = Zilberman, David. Yosef Kuzkovsky: In Memory of the Artist. (A. Kronberg), 1977.