From Republic of Mordovia

Self-portrait. Self-portrait (Anguish)1908 .

Stepan Erzia.

( Svetlana M. and Anna B. Grade 10. Tarkhanovo Secondary School. Republic of Mordovia )

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(1)Michelangelo.1942. (2)Alexander Nevsky.1931 (3)Beethoven.1929. (4)Head of a Spanish Woman.

Stepan Dmitrievich Nefedov (the real surname of the sculptor is those) – was born in Mordovia. And so he took a pseudonym under the name of one of ethnic groups. He studied in Alatyr, Kazan and Moscow. He lived for 9 years in Italy and France. He was exerted strong influence on by O. Roden’s creativity. In the first years of the Soviet authority he participated in realization of the plan of Monumental Propagation. Everything that he had reached, it was obliged to the natural talent, enormous work capacity and selfless, almost fanatical, fidelities to favorite business.

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(5) Portrait of an Old Mordovian. 1944. (6) Portrait of Mordovian Woman.1917. (7) Argentinean Woman. 1940. (8) Argentinean.1937.

Since 1926 till 1950 Erzia had been living and working in Argentina. He created many sculptures from wood. In South America his favorite materials were algarroba and quebracho - local kinds of a tree. His works were marvelous beauty. The master worked, using natural internal figure of a wood, its natural forms.

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(9-10) Moses.1932. (11) Portrait of Kisel-Zagoryanskaya. (1918). (12) Woman from Argentina.(1934)

Erzia aspired to romantic heroization of the person’s image. His sculptures are those: "Tolstoy", "Beethoven", «Argentinean», «Moskvichka», "Self-portrait", "Mordovian Girl" and others. Roden’s influence is felt in unusual on a plot and very emotional on perception works such as "Despair" and "Pleasure". But, perhaps, his most well-known sculpture is three-meter bible «Moses», exhibited in the Mordovian Republican Museum of Fine Arts in Saransk. Here there are also many other things of his works which he had bequeathed in gift to the Mordovian people. Many, but not all. When the sculptor returned home in 1950, he could not bring with himself everything that he had created for 24 years in South America.