Among Bogatyrs and Maidens: Visual Images of the Mother Russia in Mikhail O. Mikeshin’s Work

The article considers a number of visual personifications of Russia in works by Mikhail O. Mikeshin (1835–1896). Their detailed interpretation in the context of the study of feminine national allegories in historiography has not been undertaken before. The author has offered an explanation of two key anthropomorphic allegories (the Maiden Russia and the Bogatyr / Vityaz) in a little-known painting by Mikeshin, The Coronation of Alexander III (1883). The article reconstructs the evolution of the image of the Maiden Russia in Mikeshin’s sculpture and graphics of the 1860s-1890s, which influenced the stereotypes of visual personifications of Russia (in the image of the Woman Warrior) in Russian culture of the second half of the 19th — early 20th centuries. The identification of the image of the Bogatyr on the coronation painting has been carried out. Based on its comparison with the iconographic types of the Noble Prince Alexander Nevsky in the 19th century (which have been subject of research in modern historiography), the author substantiates the assumption that the Bogatyr in Mikheshin’s painting is the image of Saint Alexander Nevsky, the heaven patron of the dead Emperor Alexander II and the crowning Emperor Alexander III.