Ljuba Monastirskaja
Ljuba Monastirskaja | |
|---|---|
 Ljuba Monastirskaja circa 1926 | |
| Born | 25 September 1906 |
| Died | 30 November 1941 (aged 35) |
Ljuba Monastirskaja, (25 September 1906 - 30 November 1941) was a Latvian textile artist.[1] She was born into an secular jewish family. Her father was a merchant who had moved to Riga from Chernigov to escape the new wave of progromes.[2]
Her upbringing in Riga during the later parts of 1910s was affected by events like the First World War. Monastirskaja as a teenager studied at the jewish secular school in Riga, where she graduated in 1924.[2] Approximately two years later in October 1926, she started to study at the German arts and design school Bauhaus in Dessau, where she studied for teachers like Josef Albers, Gunta Stölzl, Marcel Breuer and Georg Muche[3].
Similarly with most female students at Bauhaus she was placed at the textile factory. There she could develop her skills with textiles and industrial weaving techniques adapted for mass production and a more modern way mostly inspired by constructivism[1].
Ljuba Monastirskaja can be seen in a well known photograph which shows female students standing on the stairwell inside the Bauhaus building, she can be seen standing besides Gunta Stölzl and Otti Berger.[4] After her years of studie she started working for two well known textile producers firstly in Mössingen and then Sagan. Her ambition was to continue to live and work in Germany, but the nazi power rise in 1933 would hinder that, she was later arrested and deported to Latvia.[5]
A short time after returning to Latvia she married architect Natan Kirsh in 1934, who also had a jewish upbringing.[6] After political unrest in Latvia she had trouble establishing herself and her career as textile producer, as she belonged to an minority who became marginalised by the regime in Latvia as russian speaking an a jew, her education in Germany was also a reason.[2]
In 1941, after the nazi invasion of Latvia a persecution of latvian jews started, Monastirskaja was placed along with over 40,000 jews in a specially made ghetto. Her husband head earlier been moved to Biķernieki.[7]
On 30 November 1941, she along with 12,000 others where moved from the ghetto to Rumbula to a forrest ten kilometres south of Riga where she was forced down into a massgrave and shot to death. This massacre was done by the nazis Einsatzgruppe A.[7]
After Monastirskajas was moved to the ghetto in Riga and her death in Rumbula, most of her belonging and artistic works was destroyed or got lost, this was part of nazi Germanys extermination of culture, books, arts and memories of the people doing it.[8]
References
- ^ a b Angrick, Andrej; Klein, Peter (2009). The "Final Solution" in Riga: Exploitation and Annihilation, 1941–1944. New York: Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-84545-608-5
- ^ a b c Onckule, Zane (2023). "(Ne)būt pie stellēm: Bauhaus, «dārgās niecības» un gal Ļuba" (in Latvian). Arterritory. Retrieved 23 May 2024.
- ^ "Ljuba Kirsh". Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center. Retrieved 23 May 2024.
- ^ "Die Weberinnen auf der Bauhaustreppe, Gunta Stölzl, Meister der Weberei, mit ihren Studierenden" (in German). Kunst Archive. Retrieved 23 May 2024.
- ^ Pourchier-Plasseraud, Suzanne (2015). ”The Authoritarian Regime (1934–1940)”. Arts and a Nation: The Role of Visual Arts and Artists in the Making of the Latvian Identity, 1905-1940 (Leiden: Brill Rodopi). ISSN 1570-7121.
- ^ Pourchier-Plasseraud, Suzanne (2015). "The Authoritarian Regime (1934–1940)". Arts and a Nation: The Role of Visual Arts and Artists in the Making of the Latvian Identity, 1905-1940. Leiden: Brill Rodopi. ISSN 1570-7121.
{{cite web}}: Missing or empty|url=(help) - ^ a b Angrick, Andrej; Klein, Peter (2009). The "Final Solution" in Riga: Exploitation and Annihilation, 1941–1944. New York: Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-84545-608-5.
- ^ Rydell, Anders (2013). Plundrarna - Hur nazisterna stal Europas konstskatter. Stockholm: Ordfront. pp. 8–29.
External links
Media related to Ljuba Monastirskaja at Wikimedia Commons
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