For my generation, Boris Bernstein has always radiated the strange dazzle of an outsider. I heard his name mentioned in school, as a mixture of connotations with a hint of respect, fear and something else as well. A bit later came the first encounter with his texts. Then, while studying at the State Art Institute, I saw the flesh-and-blood person, who for some reason did not seem to fit the texts and the previous rumours. Boris Bernstein is, without any doubt, a born lecturer. During the Soviet period, many courses at the Art Institute took place in both Estonian and Russian, and it was the latter where Bernstein was involved. We could thus enviously watch the heated disputes of our other-language coursemates in the canteen and elsewhere centred on the brilliant and dashing BB. The subject of art history, where Bernstein finally began lecturing in Estonian as well, came up later. The first classes of art historians, now active in their field, were able to benefit from these courses. He then left for America. Bernstein’s ties with Estonia continue; even his presence is still felt through correspondence, although there is, of course, a sense of distance.

Bernstein’s progress in Estonia was strangely similar to that of Juri Lotman, the central figure of the Tartu-Moscow school of semiotics.

There are two years of difference in age between them and they came to Estonia within a year of each other. Both graduated from Leningrad University. Even their reasons for coming here were more or less the same: a wave of anti- Semitism at the close of the Stalinist era. They also had similar interests: a fascination with the possibilities of structural semiotics and communication theory in the 1960s, its softening and the later influence of post-structuralism. However, Lotman focused on Russian culture, whereas Bernstein blended almost immediately into the Estonian art world. This dialogue was especially lively from the late 1950s onwards, when academic research in Estonian and Russian was published about Aino Bach, Peeter Ulas, Vive Tolli, Jüri Arrak, Nikolai Kormashov et al. The connection is thus primarily with Estonian graphic art. Alongside that, a more general theoretical writing developed, which was quite different from the first, its density resembling the sparkling style of the lecturer Bernstein. Secondly, an even greater difference was the fact that no intellectual fellowship emerged around Bernstein as it did around Lotman. Although BB’s contacts with Russia were preserved, they were not mutually strengthening and did not result in a separate school.

Strangely enough, since his departure Bernstein’s different aspects have found a kind of harmony, a reconciliation. When his lecturing ended, the verve of speaking turned up in his writing. The result is a powerfully comprehensive monograph, Pictorial Image and the Art World, which examines the development and shaping of art ideas from antiquity to the present. (It was published in Russian under the title ÇËÁÛ‡Î¸Ì°È Ó·?‡Á Ë ÏË? ËÒÍÛÒÒÚ‚‡: ËÒÚÓ?˘ÂÒÍË ӘÂ?ÍË last year, and the main part has already been translated into Estonian by Inta Soms.) In addition there are his memoirs, for now only existing as excerpts in the Russian-language magazine Tallinn, but there are plans to make a book of them. Jüri Arrak. Discussion about Nature Conservancy. 1976. Oil. 190 × 295 cm. Tallinn Art Hall


Virve Sarapik
(1961), PhD, artist, semiotician, lecturer at the Estonian Academy of Arts