REVIVAL OF UNITY, 2024
Mikhail ALEKSEEV

Mikhail Alekseev's art project "The Revival of Unity" is designed to express the author’s vision and original interpretation of Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin’s historical drama *Boris Godunov* through artistic photographic works.

The project consists of a series of artistic photographic works inspired by the play *"A Comedy about a Tragedy,"* staged by the students of Pyotr Naumovich Fomenko for his 90th birthday, based on Fomenko’s rehearsals of Pushkin’s drama *Boris Godunov*.

Each photograph is a digital equivalent of easel paintings, created using modern artistic techniques and technical methods, including neural network image processing powered by artificial intelligence.

Researchers of Pushkin’s work noted as early as the 1950s that scenes from *Boris Godunov*, equidistant from the beginning and end of the play, echo each other in pairs.

The art project reveals the internal unity of all paired scenes. The author’s interpretation of the content of Pushkin’s historical drama, presented through a series of artistic digital photography works, is accompanied by detailed commentary, which is published in a brochure that forms part of the art project.

The central piece depicts twenty-three scenes from Pushkin’s historical drama, presented in the form of circles nested within each other, as if representing a film reel of unfolding stage action. The large outer circle encompasses the first twelve scenes of the play. The small inner circle features the central, twelfth scene (which is shared between both circles) and the following eleven scenes.

At the center of the main work lies a third, central circle, depicting the symbol of royal power – the Monomakh’s Cap – against a backdrop of blood spilled in pursuit of this crown, with a teardrop from a child on the cross crowning it. Pushkin’s drama begins and ends with the death of reigning monarchs, amidst a struggle for power over Russia, accompanied by the Time of Troubles and a temporary breakdown of the country’s unity, which was miraculously restored later.

The series of photographic collages in Mikhail Alekseev’s art project *"The Revival of Unity"* demonstrates the paired internal correspondence of scenes from Pushkin’s historical drama *Boris Godunov*, symmetrically positioned from the beginning and end of the play. Each collage features two scenes from the tragedy, but they are composed in such a way that they appear as a single, cohesive artistic work.