Zelimkhan Esmurziev dedicated his painting ‘In Memory’, created in 2000, to the difficult pages of the history of his Motherland — the forced deportation of the Ingush people.

On the morning of February 23, 1944, on Joseph Stalin’s order, the eviction of the Chechens and the Ingush from the Chechen-Ingush ASSR began. This operation was prepared in secret and became one of the largest ethnic deportations in the history of the Soviet Union.

Abdul-Hamid Tangyev, Deputy Chairman for Industry of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, recalled:

According to various sources, the deportation claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people. Some were killed because of their attempts to resist, some did not survive the journey, many died because of the difficult living conditions in the special settlement: after they arrived, there were no homes, food, medicines, or clothing for them.

The deportation affected the artist’s family as well. Zelimkhan Esmurziev was born on April 20, 1950 when his family was in exile in Kazakhstan. The boy was supposed to go to the first grade when the Khrushchev’s Thaw era came, and the government allowed the Ingush to return to the Caucasus. The Esmurzievs were some of the first to come back home.

The terrible February days of 1944 are depicted on the painting from the museum collection. Its composition is very unusual; it is constructed like a kaleidoscope of memory flashes: flashes of fire, people wander with knapsacks and dig a grave, a jug with spilled milk — here it is a symbol that commemorates the children and the old people who died of hunger. An elderly woman rises above all this, she looks directly and attentively into the eyes of the viewer.

Experts noted that the artist was an excellent portraitist: in just a few strokes of the brush, he could capture not only the external features but also the character of a person. In the painting ‘In Memory’, the master paid special attention to the woman’s gaze — her eyes reflect the bitterness of loss, defeat, and unfulfilled hopes. In all her appearance one feels the wisdom of a person who has a difficult life.