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(E-E) Evgenij Kozlov: Leningrad 80s • No.115 >>
1. From Leningrad to Boston and Back
Although the Soviet regime heavily restricted contacts with the western world for Soviet citizens, making friends with foreigners from so-called “capitalist countries” was not unusual among young artists, especially those who like (E-E) Evgenij Kozlov belonged to the “unofficial” art-scenes of Moscow and Leningrad / Saint Petersburg. Both cities saw an influx of international visitors – not only tourists, but also students remaining for some longer time, studying Russian or other subjects at Moscow’s and Leningrad's universities. Embassy and consulate staff and the gatherings they organised also played a major role in establishing contacts with foreigners more>>. In Kozlov’s archive, there are a number of letters from Germany and the United States dating to the mid-seventies, which show that he had long been interested in communicating with the “outer” world. Quite often, it was Kozlov’s close friend Kolya Vlasov, an outgoing, extroverted young man and English teacher, who made the first contact. Vlasov had the privilege of living all on his own in a small apartment in the centre of town, where Kozlov, who lived in the outskirts of Leningrad, would sometimes show his works to foreign students. It was with Vlasov that Kozlov met Catherine Mannick and her friend Ann in the summer of 1979. The students from the United States, both speaking Russian, were studying in a summer Russian language program at Leningrad State University. Mannick had visited the Soviet Union several times previously, the first time in 1973 with her high school . The four young people, all in their mid-twenties, were curious to find out more about each other, and it appears that they had a lot in common. Actually, the pictures from Mannick’s archive don’t tell who is American and who is Russian. They show Vlasov, Kozlov and Mannick in Vlasov’s apartment looking at Kozlov’s drawings. Put differently, Kozlov introduced himself to Mannick as an artist, and many of his letters reflect his artistic quest.
 Those few times Mannick and Kozlov met in 1979 set the beginning of a correspondence across political boundaries that would last for an exceptional eleven years, with letters being sent from Leningrad to Boston and back up to 1990. Numerous gifts evidence the closeness they were feeling for each other, among them books and records, but most importantly, Kozlov’s artworks, often included in a letter. Mannick cherished them:
During those eleven years, encounters were rare, especially because travels were possible only into one direction, with Mannick coming to the Soviet Union. Kozlov, like the overwhelming majority of Soviet citizens, remained stuck in his own country:
Birthdays and Christmas / New Year were standard opportunities to send each other letters and greetings, and they both tried not to miss them. To maintain the friendship across the border, Mannick’s visits to Leningrad were, however, decisive. In October 1982, after receiving her law degree in the U.S., she began graduate studies in law at Moscow University, and until June 1983, when she left, they were able to meet a number of times. Mannick again briefly visited Leningrad in October 1984 and then in October 1986. After that, there was a longer break, since several of Mannick’s attempts to visit the Soviet Union failed, one of the reasons being that the country became a “perestroika” destination for foreign tourists and hotel rooms were booked out (Letter 47, 1989). Their next encounter took place in Moscow in early 1990. By that time, each had become fully engaged with their personal lives – Mannick with her job and marriage, and Kozlov with his new studio “The Russian Field”, where he was becoming more and more integrated into the international art world. In 1989, he wrote:
But they both nevertheless kept the affectionate tone of their writing. Kozlov’s last letter is from March 1990:
How glad I was to see you in Moscow! It has been one of the most wonderful and pleasant moments of my life lately, and I really love to remember that half an hour of our conversation. (Letter R, 1990) They met again shortly afterwards, in Leningrad in May 1990, and then a last time, also in Leningrad, in the autumn of the same year. After that, their paths ultimately parted. While Mannick continued visiting Russia on business trips and kept the contact with their common friends, Kozlov eventually moved to Berlin.
Arranging for meetings was not always easy. Because the KGB might read letters from America, it seemed better not to be too specific about a place and time in advance. Another reason was that on average, letters took three weeks to arrive, and plans could easily change during this time. When Mannick came to the Soviet Union, she often called a common friend to leave a message, since Kozlov lived in Peterhof (Petrodvorets), in the outskirts of Leningrad, without a telephone. In 2023, she recalled how she had learned how to deal with the situation during her studies in Moscow:
To Kozlov, being able to communicate in Russian was clearly a precondition for keeping a correspondence with his friend Catherine. He was fluent in art, but not in English, although he did attend private English classes and sometimes used English words or sentences in his letters. In Russian, his writing style is elegant, if not literary, and displays the great care he took in expressing his thoughts and reflections in an interesting, and sometimes paradoxical and humorous way: “I received you letter with great pleasure. What a pity you didn’t fit in the envelope, you are just too small.” (Letter B, 1980). His descriptions of his activities are colourful and entertaining, be it a fishing trip in the Gulf of Finland where he almost drowned (Letter D, 1982), a large exhibition with, among others, two of his paintings entitled “The Horror Stories of Bourgeois Cinema” (Letter I, 1986), or celebrating a New Year party among artists and art lovers with “Russian folk songs and opera arias (almost like in the Kirov Theatre)” (Letter O, 1988). Mannick appreciated Kozlov’s stories and reflections – “I so love to hear about your life and about your work and about your thoughts” (Letter 30, 1985). He often addressed his friend directly, commenting on her thoughts or asking for her opinion on different matters – including his art. In 1986, Kozlov discussed his painting “CCCP-USA” with his friend. It is one of the first works where this inscription appears as part of the composition.
In this way, Kozlov’s texts come as close as possible to a direct conversation, and it is essential that his idea of a continuous dialogue was taken up by his friend, even though the intervals between two letters could amount to several months. The private character of the correspondence allowed Mannick and Kozlov to talk about and explain the feelings they were experiencing for each other. Although they were important for Kozlov as well as for Mannick, the letters also reveal conflicting ideas about how their friendship would progress. Kozlov was hoping for a common future and tried to involve his friend in his plans:
Mannick declined such far-going plans for their friendship, and this made her 1984 visit “pleasant and tense at the same time” (Letter 24, 1984). Later, she apologised for giving “contradictory signs”, and while she also wrote of her new and promising engagement with someone she had met some months earlier, she insisted that “relations between us were special and in my mind always will be”. (Letter 32, 1985) The contradictions notwithstanding, Mannick’s 1986 visit left a deep impact on both of them. On that occasion, Kozlov introduced her to some of his artist friends, and Mannick remembered “another, wonderful planet […] sitting at your place in Peterhof, strolling, in the restaurant, at the concert, at parties, on crazy taxis, listening to Vysotsky’s music, one can dream of this!” Kozlov, for his part, concluded, “…my world, my condition, my peace and anxiety, the harmony of my life have changed” (Letter L, 1986). If Kozlov created a wonderful planet for Mannick, then Mannick created a just as wonderful planet for Kozlov – a space within a space, sheltered from Soviet reality.
Over time, Kozlov, accepted that his romantic expectations were not met, though it didn’t stop him from wishing that Mannick was coming back to her “beloved Leningrad and Petrodvorets which are waiting for you with impatience and miss you very much!" (Letter O, 1988). On the other hand, as his first and main concern was and has always been art, art set the priority with regard to his personal life. The artworks and the pictures Kozlov sent his friend bear witness of a fast artistic evolution. By the end of the 1980s, his distinctly personal style fused elements of classical drawing, early Soviet art, as well as of western graffiti and pop art.
Hannelore Fobo, 9 March 2024. [2] Translation of (E-E) Evgenij Kozlov’s letters by Hannelore Fobo. [3] For a detailed description of the status of an “unofficial” or “non-official” artist see Hannelore Fobo.Timur Novikov's New Artists Lists, page 4 • The Leningrad subculture of the 1980s, 2018 more >> [4] Translation of Catherine Mannick’s letters by herself. |
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 see also (E-E) Evgenij Kozlov, Catherine Mannick, and Hannelore Fobo papers, 1979-2022 (inclusive) Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies Special Collection Harvard University >> Published 15 March 2024 A shorter version was published 20 February 2023 |
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