414 pages, 32 pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 21 cm.

One of the intriguing paradoxes of history is that the creators of the "non-market" Soviet economy made a significant contribution to the development of the world market for icon paintings. At the turn of the 1920s-1930s, through their efforts, an enormous number of icons was collected, a grandiose advertising campaign was carried out - the first Soviet foreign icon exhibition, which presented the world in all its splendor with a new antique product: icons from the USSR - contacts were established with Western antique dealers and sales of collections of icons were organized for foreign buyers. The search for currency for industrialization resulted in the development of world-wide interest in the icon. The book tells about the history of museums and people (fate treated some of them favorably, others mercilessly), how the grandiose icon collection of the State Museum Fund was created and liquidated, who selected icons for export and how, how many icons were put up for sale by Russian museums, whether the icons sold were fakes, as well as what fate awaited the icons after the sale.

Russian

March 27, 2024

Includes bibliographical references (pages 411-415).