There have been many studies of the peredvizhniki, but this well-researched volume is the first to approach these artists primarily from the point of view of social history. As such, it provides a refreshing corrective to numerous received views about the group's supposed idealism and progressive political stance. The book's instructive sub-title, “Between a commercial association and an artistic movement,” reminds us that financial profit was always a priority for the artists who in 1871 formed the first independent exhibition organization in Tsarist Russia. As Andrei Shabanov shows, the peredvizhniki took care in planning their mobile exhibitions (which travelled not just to Kharkov, Kiev and Odessa after St. Petersburg and Moscow, but also to cities such as Tambov, Yaroslavl and Saratov), thus their usual English appellation of “Wanderers,” with all its connotations, is rendered as glaringly and gloriously inappropriate. “Itinerants,” as they are sometimes known, is less romantic and less resonant, but more accurate.

Although the “Association of Itinerant Exhibitions” survived as an organization until 1923, Shabanov charts its history from official registration only up until the publication of the album marking its twenty-fifth anniversary in 1897, pinpointed as the year when misleading perceptions of the group as critical realists crystallized. It is these perceptions, still current in recent Russian and English-language scholarship, that he is above all concerned to dismantle, along with the idea that there was an organic connection between the Itinerants and the 1863 student rebellion at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts. The Itinerants have frequently been discussed in art history separately from their annual exhibitions, and Shabanov is also keen to show how closely their work was in fact bound up with them. To this end the first part of the book, which is devoted to institutional history, and the public image that the Itinerants collectively created and subsequently controlled, is followed by a second part which investigates how the group was conversely viewed by contemporary Russian society. This is done through the medium of five key exhibitions used as case studies, namely the inaugural exhibition of 1871–72, the first exhibition to be held outside the Imperial Academy in 1876, and those of 1883, 1884, and 1885, which were held in the early years of Alexander III's reign. The last three were the most scandalous, due to provocative paintings exhibited by Ilya Repin: “Religious Procession in Kursk Province,” “They Did Not Expect Him,” and “Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan, 16 November 1581.” The sensation they caused raised the Association's profile, but led to the introduction of censorship, and a change in the group's previously apolitical orientation.

The great value of this study lies in its detailed documentation of the socio-political context, ranging from the circumstances under which the Itinerants formed an “association” (tovarishchestvo) rather than a “society” (obshchestvo), and their sometimes tense relationship with the Imperial Academy of Arts. The author sheds new light on the factors governing the predominance of certain genres over others at exhibitions, and provides helpful illustrations which show at a glance the relative dimensions of the works exhibited. He also deploys a wide variety of hitherto neglected contemporary sources, including catalogues, newspaper reviews, statistical tables, advertisements, and photographs, including some rare shots showing exactly how the paintings exhibited were hung. The inclusion in the appendices of the Association's 1870 charter, as well as its 1888 and 1897 reports are a valuable addition. The 1888 report, in particular, which assessed the Association's activities during its first fifteen years, can be seen as the nearest thing to an artistic manifesto produced by this quite heterogeneous group. It was surprisingly only at this point that one can discern the emergence of any artistic agenda, as the author successfully demonstrates.

The book's third chapter, which examines how the Itinerants represented themselves visually on the basis of their regular group photographs, is its weakest. Although not without interest, its argument is somewhat labored, and the author could have summarized his findings with greater brevity in favor of expanding the frame of reference when discussing the individual paintings which are showcased, particularly those by Repin. The views of critics count, and the author's careful dissection of the “disinformation” that resulted from Vladimir Stasov's influential but misleading promotion of the Itinerants is important. What is missing, however (the official reports of 1888 and 1897 notwithstanding), is the voices of the artists themselves, and those of other important cultural figures who had an impact on their work. They remain mute throughout, while reference to their correspondence or diaries would have added another crucial perspective in the discussion of both individual paintings and the question of how the artists represented themselves.

This attractively produced paperback volume, which is based on a doctoral dissertation written in English at the Courtauld Institute by a St. Petersburg-based scholar, represents a model of a new kind of academic publication which fully integrates Russian and western scholarly practice, and is appended by a useful English-language summary.