Q 17.02.2001

Re: Q: Bakunin and Raphael

Martin Chidiac

Sehr geehrte Frau Doherty,

erste Ergebnisse meiner Recherchen.

Die Legende ist sehr schoen beschrieben bei: Erhard Hexelschneider,
Ein Schatz in der Tabaksdose, S. 91-92, Dresden 1997
ISBN 3-929048-29-9

Bakunin wollte zudem auch noch einige Murillos auf die Barikaden
legen. Allerdings wird die Annekdote als Spott auf die preussischen
Soldaten gewertet, die schon waehrend des siebenjaehrigen Krieges
1756-63 Schloss Hubertusburg und das Palais Bruehl verwuestet hatten.

Hexelschneider fuehrt an weiterer Literatur zum Thema an:

Luehr, Hans-Peter: Bakunin und der Dresdner Mai-Aufstand, in:
Dresdner Hefte 13 1995, Heft 43, S. 67-76.

Michael Bakunin, Gottfried Semper, Richard Wagner und der Dresdner
Mai-Aufstand 1849, Bonn 1995.

Unterhaltungen mit Bakunin. Gesammelt von Arthur Lehning, Leipzig
1991.

Erste Nachrichten zu dem Thema gibt es bei:
Alexander Herzen: Mein leben. Memoiren und Reflexionen.

Falls sich noch andere Hinweise Anfinden, werde ich Sie
benachrichtigen

Mit freundlichen Gruessen

Martin B. Chidiac

Landeshauptstadt Dresden
Kulturamt
P.O. Box 120020
01001 Dresden
Tel. 0351 488-8933
Fax: 0351 488-8923

Martin B. Chidiac
Kaethe-Kollwitz-Ufer 29
01307 Dresden
Tel.: (0351) 459 54 75
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Betreff: Query, Bakunin and Raphael
Datum: Mon, 05 Feb 2001 12:20:12 -0500
Von: Brigid Doherty <bdohertyjhu.edu>

Dear Listmembers, I seek a published source, in German, for the
anecdote below. Please note that I'm aware that the story may be
apocryphal, and that while I would welcome any relevant information,
the matter of the story's status as historical truth or fiction is
ultimately not my concern. Ideally, I'd like to have a published
source (historical, literary, journalistic -- any form will do) from
the period 1890-1920, but I would be grateful for any information on
German sources of any period. (The leads I've pursued thus far are so
many and varied that it would be impossible to list them here. All
suggestions are welcome!)

Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin is said to have proposed hanging
Raphael's masterpiece the "Sistine Madonna" on the barricades during
the Dresden uprising of May 1849. Bakunin's objective was to deter
the Prussian troops from firing on the revolutionaries by placing the
prized painting in the line of fire. ("The story," writes E. H. Carr,
"that Bakunin proposed to hang the Sistine Madonna on the
barricades, on the ground that the Prussians were 'too cultured to
fire on Raphael,' belongs to the world of picturesque legend.")

I seek a German source for any version of that "picturesque legend.

" My aim is to establish the currency of the story among artists in
Germany around 1920, the moment of the so-called "Kunstlump-Debatte"
carried out among the Berlin Dadaists George Grosz and John
Heartfield, the Expressionist painter and playwright Oskar Kokoschka
(at the time Professor at the Kunstakademie in Dresden), and the
German Communist Party critic, Gertrud Alexander. Damage done to
masterpieces in Dresden's Zwinger galleries during the uprising of
March 1920 was a focal point of the heated exchanges on art and
politics among those several important figures of early Weimar
culture. Many thanks in advance for any assistance subscribers to the
list may be able to provide.

Dr. Brigid Doherty Assistant Professor of the History of Art and
Humanities Department
of the History of Art
The Johns Hopkins University
268 Mergenthaler Hall
3400 North Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21218
(410) 516-5528 voice mail
(410) 516-5188 fax
bdohertyjhu.edu

Quellennachweis:
Q: Re: Q: Bakunin and Raphael. In: ArtHist.net, 17.02.2001. Letzter Zugriff 29.03.2024. <https://arthist.net/archive/24335>.

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