The Union of Artists called “Soyuz Molodyozhi” (Union of Youth), created on the initiative of Mikhail Vasilyevich Matyushin and Elena Genrikhovna Guro, was founded in early 1910. It was planned as a project for non-academic artists and was open to all stylistic innovations while still at the initial stage.

The “Soyuz Molodyozhi” would maintain the same strategy in the future. From the first year of its existence, the association’s plans included establishing contacts with European artists — first from Finland and Sweden, then from Germany.

The aim of the trips to these countries was not only to organize joint exhibitions but above all to obtain paintings and publications for the two main projects of the “Soyuz Molodyozhi”. At the time, the artists sought to create the world’s first museum of contemporary art and a library of non-academic art. However, those projects were never completed. The plan of opening a cabaret theater also remained unrealized.

The art association included at least 86 actively participating artists who presented themselves as innovators, and that was how they were received by critics and the public. The “Soyuz Molodyozhi” did not last long: it was enjoying its heyday when it was disbanded in 1914 due to the outbreak of the First World War.

Nevertheless, the association succeeded in achieving something that no one else before them had — they created an exhibition space and an inviting environment for all participants of the avant-garde movement to engage in discussions, while simultaneously working to inform the public about the newest art tendencies. The exhibitions, debates, meetings, discussions and new acquaintances formed the Russian avant-garde.

In total, the “Soyuz Molodyozhi” organized seven exhibitions: five regular exhibitions in Saint Petersburg and two others — in Moscow and Riga. According to the rules, members of the association were free to participate in the exhibitions, while others had to obtain permission through the judging panel of the association, but in practice, there were few cases of refusal.

The exhibitions organized by the “Soyuz Molodyozhi” became the most important platform in the Russian Empire for displaying new ideas and introducing new names and exhibited the full range of modern trends — from Symbolism and Neoprimitivism to Cubo-Futurism. The names of the exhibitions, except for the second one, did not have ordinal numbers, which has repeatedly caused confusion in the research literature.