Memorial Board To Mark Shagal Just Opened in St. Petersburg

There is a house downtown St.Petersburg where famous artist Mark Shagal used to live about a century ago. The famous artist, Movsha Shagalov at birth, and his young wife named Bella, spent several years in our city, 1907 through 1918. That period was the time of education and formation for a young artist, when his talent, professional career and social life were in process of rapid development.

Mark Shagal and his wife moved into the house in Perekupnoi pereulok in 1915.

In 1973, Shagal revisited St. Petersburg, and in 1981 he donated some of his prints to the Hermitage that arranged a series of his exhibitions that year.

Now there is this memorial board right on the facade of the residential building, with the name of Mark Shagal engraved on it. The board was designed by Viacheslav Bukhaev, a St. Petersburg architect, who used white granite decorated with smalt as the material for the piece.

The board was only opened in March 2014, even though as early is in 2012 the State Hermitage and the Likhachev foundation have been promoted several cultural events in St. Petersburg, dedicated to Shagal's 125th anniversary. However making things happen has taken over two years of reconciliation, and various adjustments with the City Administration.

Another issue related to the memorial board was the translation of Yidish names into Russian.

The artist named Movsha Hazkelevich Shagalov at birth was registered as Movsha Zakharovich in the soviet documentation. That was exactly the name initially written on the memorial board. However, having spent most of his life in France, the great artist became renowned by most of the world as Mark Shagal. That name is shorter and has no patronymic.

Eventually the name on the memorial board has been re-written and lost the patronymic part, too.

By Dima Sharov