The Red Army
2010
Sound installation
Arkhstoyanie – an annual international festival of landscape installations, Nikola-Lenivets (Kaluga Region), Russia
curator Oleg Kulik
The installation features a labyrinth of trenches and underground shelters built directly into the landscape. The project guides the visitor through a journey in the underground structure. The art work was created for the 2010 Arkhstoyanie festival and was related to the concept of a labyrinth, where a journey is navigated by a single, predetermined path rather than free will.
For this project, Anatoly Osmolovsky narrated both in Russian and German the chapter “The Red Army” from the book “Tank Battles” written by Wehrmacht General Friedrich Wilhelm von Mellentin. In the early 1940s Von Mellentin fought in North Africa. In 1943, he was transferred to the Eastern Front and took part in the Stalingrad military campaign, where he faced the Red Army’s desperate resistance.
The chapter ‘The Red Army’ was written as a cautionary tale for Western military commanders who, from his perspective, would inevitably have to face the Russian soldier as a dangerous adversary in the future. The work provides insight into the methods of warfare employed by Russian soldiers and, at the same time, encourages discussion about how we view the topic.
The combination of the trench spatial systems with the recording of the first-person wartime account shapes a dual experience: a journey through the trenches and the engagement with the historical narrative where the presence of the army is being seen as a description and a trace, but not as a representation.
Text by Oleg Kulik
The project consists of a system of trenches and dugouts modelled on those used during the Second World War. The network of passageways, fortified positions, storage areas and dugouts is designed to be as intricate as a labyrinth. The labyrinth beneath the earth. The labyrinth of war.
This intricate system hides sound systems which broadcast the memoirs of the famous German general Mellenberg, where he analyzes the actions of the Red Army. These memoirs make interesting reading, as their central theme is a sense of panic and dread at the invincibility of Russian weaponry.
