>>7301720Three days after the slashing, the young artist and poet Maximilian Voloshin published a short essay entitled "On the Significance of the Catastrophe that Befell Repin's Painting," which argued that its gory representation of violence had shocked and tormented viewers for two decades before pushing Balashev over the edge. A month later, Voloshin elaborated on his argument in a public lecture and debate at the Moscow Polytechnic Museum, sponsored by members of the Futurist artistic group called The Jack of Diamonds. Among the members of the audience in the packed stadium was Repin himself.
Of course, Voloshin's lecture was an avant-garde provocation--as most events sponsored by Futurists were organized to be. Voloshin argued here that "in the figure of Balashev we are not dealing with a criminal, but with a victim of Repin's painting," and that "the evil brought about by Repin's painting in the course of thirty years has been great indeed." He concluded that the painting was a dangerous work of art that caters to the mass taste for sensationalism and cheap thrills, and that it "has no place in the National Gallery," belonging instead in some sort of wax museum. "There, it would decieve no one, for eveyone who goes to such a place knows what he is after." At the very least, Voloshin recommended that the Tetrykov Gallery move it to a separate room marked with a sign that read "Entrance for Adults Only."
