Snapshot: My grandad, an artist killed by Stalin

My grandfather, Piotr Ivanovich Sokolov – Peter in the anglicised form – died on 9 December 1937, although none of us, including my grandmother, knew this until recently.

This photograph was taken in St Petersburg in 1935 (then Leningrad)after he was arrested for making remarks that were not only deemed to be anti-Soviet but also anti-Stalin. He was almost certainly making a joke but it was not a time of jokes and Stalin’s sense of humour was notoriously unpredictable. He was detained in a labour camp and later executed.

I never knew him and my grandmother, as far as I was aware, never spoke of him, but the sad defiance of his steady look speaks volumes of history for so many Russians sentenced to die on the whim of their leader.

Peter was an artist of considerable note whose work placed him firmly in the Russian avant-garde. Historians of the Russian avant-garde described his work as “the best example of the second wave of new Russian art” and him as “one of the most remarkable draughtsmen of the 20th century”.

Most of his pictures were lost in the upheavals of post-revolutionary Russia and the second world war but a few survive in collections around the world.

Born in Moscow in 1892, it was Peter’s time in St Petersburg, initially as head of a studio, the Leontiy Benois House, that was most productive. In 1925, he began to illustrate children’s books and later joined Oberiu as part of the absurdist movement that almost certainly satirised the growing restrictions of the regime as it became more and more totalitarian. Most of the members perished for their efforts.

My grandmother, Katya, who appears in a number of his pictures, chose to leave Russia in late 1920 with my two-year old father and, pregnant with my uncle, she and her sister walked along the railway line from St Petersburg into Finland from where they made their way to London and a new life. She died in 1975, long before Glasnost allowed access to long hidden NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) files. From these, my brother was able, with the help of researchers, to unearth details of Peter’s death including the trial record.

Two years ago, Ildar Galeyev, curator of the Galeyev gallery in Moscow, published an illustrated biography in celebration of my grandfather’s life and work.

Tatiana Sokoloff de Diaz

Playlist: Laughter in the dark for me and Dad

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life by Eric Idle (from Life of Brian)

“Life’s a piece of shit, when you look at it / Life’s a laugh and death’s a joke, it’s true /You’ll see it’s all a show”

I was five when I first heard the Monty Python classic. It was a censored version of the song, but my mum was very shocked to find me singing it on the way home from school. When she told my dad, instead of being concerned like most parents might be, he burst out laughing and joined in.

The song just made me happy. If I had had a particularly bad day at school with bullies, I’d start whistling to it myself. Or try to, anyway. It kept me from always thinking of the bad things that had happened.

I can remember sitting at my grandad’s table with him, drawing together. Even at a young age, I was good at drawing. My grandad, on the other hand, wasn’t. We were sat together, the pair of us drawing my nan’s potted flowers. He became frustrated after his current attempt had gone badly, and I could hear him muttering “damn” under his breath. At this point, I started singing.

“Some things in life are bad, they can make you really mad. Other things just make you swear and curse …”

Hearty laughter filled the silent room. My nan entered the room, bewildered at the sudden noise, only to find Grandad almost in tears of laughter and me, looking just as puzzled and surprised as she was by the sudden outburst.

As I got older, the song started to develop a stronger connection to me and my family.

Since the age of 15, I’ve suffered from varying levels of depression. My dad also suffers from the same ailment. If either of us felt particularly low, we’d talk to one another, often in tears. On one night, after a very bad day for both of us, I started singing the song again. Looking up at me, Dad joined in. By the time we had finished, we were both laughing. Even though the song was created to mock an innocent and unfortunate character, it does speak of many great life lessons. While this might not have been the main intention of the Monty Python group, it has had an extraordinary effect on myself and my family.

Rachel Pitcher

We love to eat: Dad’s rare bits of cheese on toast

Ingredients

Sliced white bread
Grated cheddar cheese
Tomato ketchup

Toast one side of the bread under the grill, sprinkle a generous amount of cheese on the other side, and toast until a little burnt. Cut the slices into triangles and serve in the living room with ketchup in the middle.

In our traditional family, during the 1970s, we ate plenty of traditional British food – rissoles made from leftover roasts, shepherd’s pie, chops, liver and bacon, and so on. Every meal was eaten round the kitchen table and cooked by Mum.

Just once in a while, my dad would make tea. He wasn’t much of a cook, although in later years he has learned to do it.

These dad tea days would usually be called Welsh rarebit, after my Welsh dad. Nowadays, we might just call it cheese on toast. The toast was always cut into triangles, which made it more special and was always burnt on the outer edges. We used to dip the triangles in to a dollop of tomato ketchup.

Bev Jenkins

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