Boris Edwards – a Ukrainian refugee artist fleeing to Malta
The ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which has intensified in recent weeks due to the Russian invasion, has taken many of us by surprise. As the international community continues to react to a constantly deteriorating situation, Europe has experienced an exodus of Ukrainian refugees trying to escape the conflict and seek asylum. Meanwhile, we have also seen a lot of efforts by Ukrainians in various cities to try to cover public monuments and move pieces of art to safe places in a last-ditch attempt to save cultural heritage as the war continues.
As the Russian army advances over Odessa, many pictures have surfaced on social media of the monument to the city’s founder, Duke de Richelieu, lined with sandbags for protection. Although the war has cast a shadow over Odessa’s rich cultural heritage, one cannot ignore the fact that its blend of this city’s architectural styles and rich cultural past has impacted the advancement of Odessa. art and culture in many places in Europe. , including Malta.
Boris Edwards Vasilievich (Бори́с Васи́льевич Эдуа́рдс) is perhaps one of the largest and most prominent examples of this. His works in Malta are a perfect testament to how the migration of artists from Odessa and the historical influence of the city has helped to advance critical thinking and the development of artistic diversity.
Vasilievich was born on May 27, 1860, in Odessa, Ukraine, and was a descendant of British merchants who had settled in Tsarist Russia. He was one of five children – three boys and two girls. He was related to Clement Martin Edwards, secretary to Governor Sir Thomas Maitland during the latter’s visit to Ceylon, and whose memorial is in the Upper Shack Gardens.
His grandfather had developed a large British goods and tannery business, delivered goods from England to Odessa and exported raw materials from Odessa.
Despite his business, Boris’s childhood and adolescence were difficult, due to their poverty. He was also expelled from school for failing to pay tuition, in 1869. He then worked in V’s chemical laboratory. Krasilnikov. The 12-year-old worked as a mechanic at the Bellino factory for 10 cents a day. He developed anemia and asthma at this tender age.
In Boris’s childhood, his father took an interest in art by holding engraving and printing workshops, as well as collecting popular prints, but he opposed Boris’ desire to become an artist. Boris also loved to make models of sailing ships and various ships.
He studied sculpture at the Odessa School of the Arts (1876-1881) under L. Iorini, and from August 1881 to July 1883 at the Department of Sculpture at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, Russia. . He did not finish his studies and left due to ill health, returning to Odessa in 1882. He eventually produced monumental sculptures and photographs in Russia. He also traveled to Paris, where he taught at the St. Julian’s Academy and visited the studios of various artists. In 1888, he was awarded a third-degree artist degree by the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. He eventually taught art at various grammar schools in Odessa for 10 years.
In the 1980s, the sculptor worked in plaster and terracotta, in the 1990s he worked in marble and bronze. Edwards set up his own workshop in Sophievskiy Lane (now Lyapunov Lane), Odessa, when he returned. This workshop was the Atelier of Industrial Art and Sculpture and the first bronze foundry in the south. In 1890, Edwards was appointed a founding member and participant in the exhibitions of the Association of Southern Russian Artists. In 1897, the latter created the Odessa Literary and Artistic Society and the city’s Fine Arts Museum in 1899.
While in Odessa in the spring of 1899 (the 15th anniversary of his artistic experience), he held another exhibition in the winter garden of the Vorontsov Palace on Primorsky Boulevard.
At the turn of the century, he was awarded a scholarship in Italy through the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg. Eventually he benefited from the Tsar’s patronage. He became a scholar at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg in 1915. In 1918, he participated in the reorganization of the Odessa College of Arts, as the director, and became the director of the OVHU for a very short time. During the same year he exhibited more than 80 sculptures within the art school.
He traveled to Malta after the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 which overthrew the Tsar.
Before emigrating in 1918, Edwards transferred the remaining works of art to the Odessa Museum of Art.
During the Bolshevik revolution, some sources claimed that he was present at the assassination of his first wife, Princess Tatyana Uktomskaya, and one of his daughters, but based on his diary notes, the marriage his wife did not succeed and they had cut everything. contact in 1902. He had a daughter and a son, the latter a member of the Volunteer Army.
Edwards was supposed to sail to Malta on April 25, 1919, on a Bermuda ship. He traveled to Malta after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution that overthrew the Tsar, and initially lived with about 800 other Russian refugees in a technical school building, in large, cold wooden military barracks, and in the St. Ignatius College, St. Julian’s, which had been vacant since 1907.
The facilities and services have left much to be desired here. Governor Lord Methuen welcomed Empress Maria Feodorovna and Russian aristocrats to St. Anton’s Palace. Edwards was accompanied by Anastasia or Assia (Asya), the three-year-old daughter of his sister, Lidia. Lidia, his ‘guardian angel’ (sister) died in November 1918, under Spanish influence.
Edwards was a personal friend of the Maltese artist Gianni Vella. They became friends while on a state-funded scholarship at the Roman Accademia, and Edwards eventually moved in with Vella, until he found his home. Mary Vella mother of Assia, as if she were hers, in her first years in Malta.
On February 28, 1922, it was announced that the refugees would have to leave Malta and that their rations would cease. Many families were sent to Egypt to eventually be sent to Serbia, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia.
At the end of 1922, Assia and Boris were provided with a local passport and traveled to Europe. In Germany, in July 1921, he met and married his second wife, Rosa Reisz, who lived with him until his death. In Berlin, Edwards applied to the embassy for an official divorce from his first wife and for the official adoption of Hesse. He returned to Malta in January 1923.
Edwards was seriously ill, as in 1896 in Yekaterinodar (Krasnodar) he contracted malaria and often had seizures. He also suffered from feelings of loneliness. Edwards was an aholic of work, but a man of great strength of will and skill of work, but he strove to produce works without any assistant. He often felt that he was not an artist but a simple bronze caster, who ordered materials and produced kilns. It was a modest individual who stated: “… during these years of trial and sorrow I have even forgotten that I am truly a good artist”.
Edwards’ well-known works in Malta are a small bronze sculpture of a seated woman, known as Reverie (believed to be Mary, the wife of his artist friend Gianni Vella), a medallion attached to the façade of a house in Valletta (15, Triq iz-Zekka l-Antika), commemorating the Maltese politician Fortunato Mizzi, and the Maltese funeral monument fell into disrepair. riots known as the June 7th riot in 1919.
Reveriein the MUSE collection, it is a piece that has been replicated more than 50 times by the artist.
Edwards struggled to win commissions and was a teacher as well. He became an honorary member of the Malta Society of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce in 1924. He died of a stroke on February 12, 1924, at his home in Birkirkara and was buried in the Braxia Cemetery in Pietà. His wife and Hesse left Malta for Hamburg on June 30, 1924.
Edwards was not forgotten from his homeland, and in 1993, the Odessa Museum of Art held an exhibition of his work. In the light of the current war, it is hoped that the cultural assets of these people will be preserved for future generations to appreciate.
The author acknowledges the use of previous studies on the subject by Albert Ganado, Antonio Espinosa Rodriguez, Christian Attard, Giovanni Bonello, and Olga Barkovskaya.
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