Documentarian of the North

“Nikolai Avenirovich Shabunin was a quiet, unassuming person, likable in the truest sense of the word, Russian through and through. He was a serious worker, an excellent painter, endowed with the pure spirit of artistic creativity, a wellspring of the most elevated motives. In him, Russian art has lost a creator who was only just coming into his own, and Russia has lost an honest, modest, yet dogged figure, who might have attained great significance in his chosen field.”

Architect Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov

Even taking into account that Kondakov’s glowing words are an obituary, they are not overblown. Shabunin, had he not died young, might well have gone on to create numerous great works of art. In fact, one body of work he succeeded in completing was pathbreaking and utterly remarkable. And to this day virtually unnoticed.

Born the son of a priest on April 6, 1866, Nikolai Shabunin was raised in the village of Yurom, Mezen uyezd, Arkhangelsk guberniya. He showed a talent for art at an early age, and in 1886 he went to St. Petersburg to study informally at the Academy of Arts.

“I first made my way to St. Petersburg by the most primitive means, that is via reindeer and dogs in my home region, and further by horse. The entire distance – 2500 versts – I traveled in about 40 days.”

Soon thereafter he was accepted as a student into the studio of the great painter Ilya Repin, and in 1898 he competed for and attained the title of artist, at which point he began annual trips back to his home region, to study and document its architecture, folkways, people, and traditions.

“Mezensky kray is populated by Great Russians, Komi, and Nenets. They do not live lavishly, nor, perhaps, are they poor. If their poor crops planted in clay soil are defeated by early frosts, which is not uncommon, they still have hope in other realms: the forests, the sea, the rivers and sawmills. In some places on the Mezen and Pechora Rivers, there is still barter trade with the Samoyed, who once a year, mainly in the first half of winter, bring from the depths of the tundra products of their primitive industry they have accumulated over the past twelve months. Peasants, mostly descended from Komi, are engaged in reindeer husbandry to such an extent that a single owner may have a hundred, thousands, or even tens of thousands of deer.”

Many beautiful paintings (selling at auction today for tens of thousands of dollars) resulted from Shabunin’s travels, and he also created some beautiful historical genre works, most notably A.V. Suvorov’s Departure from Konchansky Village for the 1799 Campaign, as well as one of the few full-length portraits of Tsar Nicholas II.

Shabunin loved Mezensky uyezd and extolled its beauty, but also lamented its grave isolation.

“The road is not so much bad as it is boring and tedious... Leaving the kray, you straightaway begin to realize, to see, and for more than a day to experience the severity and remoteness of our land from the rest of boundless Russia. As soon as you leave the left bank of the Mezen River, you enter a dense forest (and what a dreary road it is) that stretches as long as the Great Wall of China, for the full length of the Mezen-Pechora region, which stretches in a band 100 to 300 versts wide... There is not even a single village en route, only a tiny postal stop every several versts, along with some ancient huts, all but sinking into the earth right up to their roofs...”

While he excelled at painting, Shabunin was more noted among his contemporaries for his sketches and studies. Yet history owes him the greatest debt for his documentary work in photography.

During nearly a decade of annual travels back to his native region, Shabunin took along a camera. With it, he captured and encapsulated village life in the Russian North like none before – or ever again.

“In the most remote corners of this distant kray, one can still find life lived in the old way, alien to all the innovations and inventions of factory culture. These are the inhabitants of small villages separated by multi-verst distances, along the banks of small rivers and in forests. These are the true children of nature. They live in their small villages almost never venturing beyond them, settling in, like bears in their dens. They have even a less of a need to escape, as the bear at least exits its den once a year to go out into the world, to refresh itself, for a bit of variety in life. Yet its neighbors, the people, don’t seem to need this.”

While Shabunin scorns the locals’ insularity and isolation, he was clearly conflicted. For he was also saddened that the old ways were changing.

“In all things there is an inclination toward a shattering and destruction of the old ways, of all that was once cherished, dear, and holy, of that which was venerated and honored.” 

The photos that Shabunin collected into five uncaptioned volumes, published in 1906 under the simple title, Travels to the North, are not merely a vivid documentation of a culture, a people, and a time. They are also fine art and fine photography, capturing telling expressions and juxtapositions of people, things and places that belie his artist’s eye and are full of meaning and historical detail. Considering the technology of photography that was available to him at the time, the achievement is all the more significant.

Little is known about Shabunin’s personal life beyond the few works of art and photography that have been preserved and the one long monograph he wrote (published posthumously in 1908 and the source of the quotes above), The Northern Krai and its Life.

His death too remains something of a mystery. The official account has it that, during his final trip to his home region, he got sick and died. Yet one source casts suspicion on this version, as Shabunin was a meticulous and careful travel planner who looked after his health rather well.

Another source claims that in 1906 Shabunin desecrated a sacred native shrine at Kozmin, shipping its artifacts and relics off to St. Petersburg, and that it was this that led the following year to his premature death, as ought to be expected by those who despoil holy sites.

In any event, on February 27, 1907, Nikolai Shabunin died with much of his life’s work incomplete. He was just 40.

To see a virtual gallery of the five Shabunin photo albums, visit bit.ly/rl1809-shabunin