Betty Roytburd

1901, Odessa, Russian Empire:While working as a journalist at Odessa News, Nikolai Korneychukov [Николай Василевич Корнейчуков] reworks his surname to create his pen name, Korney Chukovsky [Корней Чуковский].

1916, Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire:The author Maksim Gorky recruits Chukovsky to direct the children’s department of the publishing house Parus. He begins to write children’s books, the first of which is Crocodile [Крокодил], published later that year.

1917, Moscow, Russian Empire:Tsar Nicholas II abdicates. Russian autocracy collapses and the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, come to eminence. Lenin’s wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, suppresses Chukovsky’s Crocodile, deeming it a bad influence on Soviet youth.

1924: Lenin dies. Joseph Stalin is named successor.

1925, Leningrad, USSR: Parus publishes Barmaley [Бармалей], an installment in the “Doctor Aybolit” series of stories.

Two children travel to Africa, where they are taken hostage by the cannibalistic pirate, Barmaley. He ties them to a palm tree, and attempts to cook them over a fire and eat them. The good doctor Aybolit arrives in an airplane and attempts to rescue the children, but is tossed into the fire. Luckily, doctor Aybolit implores a passing crocodile to eat Barmaley, which the crocodile obliges gleefully. The children are rescued but hear Barmaley within the crocodile’s stomach pleading forgiveness. The children agree to release Barmaley from the crocodile’s belly and Barmaley re-emerges, calmer, milder and promising pretzels to the children.

1939, Stalingrad, USSR: Amidst a flourishing of socialist realist statuary across the USSR, “Children’s Dance”, also known as a “The Barmaley Statue” is erected. In it, eight children are shown dancing in a ring in the style of a Khorovod (Хоровод) around a crocodile.

August 23rd, 1942, Stalingrad, USSR: Nazis carpet-bomb the city, killing 40,000 people. The photojournalist, Emmanuil Evzerikhin, photographs the Barmaley Statue against the backdrop of the burning city. Evzerikhin’s editor reprimands him for not depicting the heroic Soviet resistance and the photograph is suppressed. The photo is circulated through channels outside the newspaper and gains widespread interest.

1950, Stalingrad, USSR: The Barmaley statue, though repaired since the Stalingrad bombings, is dismantled and removed from public view.

1953, Moscow, USSR:Stalin dies. Crocodile receives its first reprint after 37 years of suppression.

1969, Moscow, USSR:Korney Chukovsky, born Nikolai Vasilievich Korneychukov, dies.

1971, Los Angeles, California: Emmanuil Evzerikhin’s 1942 photograph of the Barmaley Fountain appears in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange during the scene in which the main character, Alex, is drugged and forced to watch a series of horrific images to cure his proclivities for “Ultra-Violence”.

1989, Moscow, USSR: Following his medical education and brief practice as a facial reconstructive surgeon, Alexander “The Surgeon” Zaldostanov founds the Night Wolves [Ночные Волки]: a motorcycle club that espouses nationalist values, anti-semitism and homophobia.

1991: Following a years-long series of demonstrations across the USSR and multiple attempted political coups, the Soviet Union collapses. The Nation of Ukraine declares independence.

2012, Sevastopol, Crimea, Ukrainian Republic: Russian President Vladimir Putin accompanies Alexander Zaldostanov and the Night Wolves to one of their many rallies promoting Russian nationalism.

August 23rd 2013, Volgograd, Russian Federation: At the urging of Zaldostanov and the other Night Wolves, the Barmaley Fountain is reconstructed and installed to commemorate the 71st anniversary of the bombings. The replica is reproduced outside the Volgograd train station at the site of the original fountain. Other replicas of the Barmaley Fountain are produced through local efforts in various nearby locations.

November 13 to 30 2013, Kiev, Ukrainian Republic: Responding to widespread government corruption and collusion with Russia, a wave of demonstrations called the “Euromaidan” [Эвромайдан] erupts in Kiev. Protesters and police clash violently across Ukraine. Maidan activists will topple 552 statues of Lenin and other soviet monuments before the close of 2014.

December 29th 2013, Volgograd, Russian Federation: A suicide bomber detonates a shrapnel bomb at the site of the Barmaley Fountain replica. Forty people are reported injured. Official sources provide inconclusive details about the identity of the bomber or the group they represent, but suggest that the bombing was carried out by Chechen insurgents.

December 31st 2013, Moscow, Russian Federation: The Night Wolves’ annual New Year’s Holiday Children’s show for the traditional “New Year’s Trees” [Новогодные Ёлки], features a villainous Statue of Liberty kidnapping Russia’s “Snow Maiden” [Снегурочка] in an attempt to Destroy Russia.

February 18 to 20 2014, Kiev, Ukrainian Republic: The Ukrainian government passes strict anti-protest laws, provoking actions by the Maidan in Kiev. Fighting breaks out between the Maidan and riot police, resulting in the deaths of 77 activists and 17 police officers. President Yanukhovich and other high-ranking government officials flee to Russia.

February 23 - March 18th 2014, Sevastopol, Crimean Peninsula: Masked Russian military officers without insignia accompanied by Night Wolves gang members take over the Crimean Supreme Council. Russian soldiers, supported by helicopters and armored vehicles secure the entirety of the peninsula. Crimea is incorporated as a subject of the Russian Federation.

Betty Roytburd (b.1989 Odessa, Ukraine) lives and works in New York. This is her second exhibition at Kimberly Klark, after her 2016 collaborative project with Filip Olszewski, “Disaster In Potato Valley”. The idea for this exhibition came to her in a dream.