Arkady Moshev was one of the leading graphic artists of the Komi Republic, a member of the Artists’ Union, and a book illustrator. He was born in 1936 in the ancient town of Kudymkar. The first settlements appeared in this area fifteen hundred years ago. Arkady Moshev worked in the archaeological department of the Academy of Sciences and devoted his life to studying the ancient culture of the Komi-Permyaks.
His series “Creation of the World. Komi Mythology” consists of 43 works, which are grouped into three theme-based categories: cosmogonic myths; epic tales and legends; and Komi beliefs about forest deities, house spirits, water sprites, and other similar creatures.
“The Downfall of the Chuds” is dedicated to the disappearance of the Chud people. The unusual tribe of miners who lived in underground caves was repeatedly mentioned in old Russian chronicles and notes of foreign travelers but never appeared in literature after the 16th century.
The land of the Chuds stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Ural Mountains. It was a Finno-Ugric tribe, neighboring the Komi, Ves, Merya, Slovenes, Samoyeds, and Livs. According to one theory, the Komi-Zyryans called themselves the Chuds. Other researchers believe that this name was given to them by the Slavs because to them they seemed strange and spoke gibberish.
The Chuds are associated with the legend of a pagan tribe that resisted attempts to baptize them, wishing to keep their own faith. When Stephen of Perm, a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church, came to the Komi region in the 14th century, the Chuds rejected Christianity and went underground, taking away all their riches. Ethnographers, linguists, historians, and local lore experts are still trying to unravel the mystery of the Chuds.
Arkady Moshev’s painting is a metaphorical image of the Chuds saying goodbye to their old way of life, faith, and culture. Wooden pagan idols are being destroyed, and three ghostly female figures represent the grief of the people. At the top, there is a bird flying away which symbolizes an archetype of the Perm animal style. The Komi-Permyaks believed that a bird was the mother of the first gods, and in their mythology, the world was created when a waterfowl brought some earth from the bottom of a prehistoric ocean.
