The ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which has intensified in recent weeks due to the Russian invasion, has taken many of us by surprise. As the international community continues to react to a continuously degenerating situation, Europe has experienced an exodus of Ukrainian refugees trying to flee the conflict and seek asylum. In the meantime, we have also seen many efforts by Ukrainians in various cities trying to cover public monuments and move art pieces to safe places in a last-ditch attempt to save cultural heritage as the war rages on.

As the Russian army advances on Odessa, many images have surfaced on social media of the monument of the city founder, the Duke de Richelieu, covered in sandbags for protection. Although the war has cast a shadow on the rich cultural heritage of Odessa, one cannot ignore the fact that its mix of architectural styles of this city and rich cultural past, has left an impact on the advancement of art and culture in many places in Europe, including Malta.

List of some refugees- including Edwards. Source: Public works Files at National Archives of Malta

Boris Edwards Vasilievich (Бори́с Васи́льевич Эдуа́рдс) is perhaps one of the greatest and most prominent examples of this. His works in Malta are a perfect testament of how the migration of artists from Odessa and the city’s historical influence has helped to advance critical thinking and the develop­ment of artistic diversity.

Vasilievich was born on May 27, 1860, in Odessa, Ukraine, and was a descendant of British merchants who had settled in Tsarist Russia. He was one of five children ‒ three sons and two daughters. He was related to Clement Martin Edwards, secretary to Governor Sir Thomas Maitland during the latter’s tour of duty in Ceylon, and whose memorial is at the Upper Barrakka Gardens.

His grandfather had developed a business of English goods and a large tannery, delivering goods from England to Odessa and exporting raw materials from Odessa.

Despite the businesses, Boris’s childhood and teenage years were hard, due to their poverty. He had also been expelled from school for not paying for tuition, in 1869. He then worked in the chemical laboratory of V. Krasilnikov. At the age of 12, he worked as a mechanic at the Bellino factory for 10 cents a day. He developed anemia and asthma at this tender age.

Monument by Boris Edwards in memory of Russian poet Alexander Pushkin in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Photo: Wikidata.com

In Boris’s childhood, his father instilled in him an interest in art by holding engraving and printing workshops, as well as collecting popular prints, yet he opposed Boris’s desire to become an artist. Boris also loved making models of sailing ships and various ships.

He studied sculpture at Odessa Art School (1876-1881) under L. Iorini, and from August 1881 to July 1883 in the Department of Sculpture at the Fine Arts Academy in St Petersburg, Russia. He did not finish his studies and left due to poor health, returning to Odessa in 1882. He eventually produced monumental and portrait sculptures in Russia. He also travelled to Paris, where he took lessons at St Julien’s Academy and visited the studios of various artists. In 1888, he was awarded the rank of third-degree artist by the Petersburg Academy of Arts. He eventually taught art in various grammar schools in Odessa for 10 years.

In the 1880s, the sculptor worked with plaster and terracotta, in the 1890s he mastered marble and bronze. Edwards set up his own workshop in Sophievskiy Lane (now Lyapunov Lane), Odessa, when he returned. This workshop was the Atelier of Art and Industrial Sculpture and the first bronze foundry in the south. In 1890, Edwards was appointed as a founding member and participant of the exhibitions of the Association of South Russian Artists. In 1897, the latter created the Odessa Literary and Artistic Society and the city museum of Fine Arts in 1899.

The funerary monument of the fallen Maltese known as the ‘Sette Giugno’ uprising by Boris Edwards at the Addolorata Cemetery in Paola, Malta. Photo: James Licari

While he was in Odessa in spring 1899 (the 15th anniversary of his artistic experience), he held another exhibition in the winter garden of the Vorontsov Palace on Primorsky Boulevard.

At the turn of the century, he was awarded a scholarship in Italy through the Fine Arts Academy in St Petersburg. He eventually bene­fited from the patronage of the Tsar. He became an academician at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts of St Petersburg in 1915. In 1918, he participated in the reorganisation of the Odessa Art College, as the director, and became the director of the OVHU for a very short period. During the same year he held an exhibition of more than 80 sculptures within the art school.

He travelled to Malta, following the 1917 Bolshevik revolution that toppled the Tsar

Before emigrating in 1918, Edwards transferred his remaining artworks to the Odessa Art Museum.

During the Bolshevik revolution, some sources claimed that he was present during the murder of his first wife, Princess Tatyana Uktomskaya, and one of his daughters, but based on his diary notes, the marriage with his first wife was unsuccessful and they had cut all contact in 1902. He had a daughter and son, the latter a member in the Volunteer Army.

Edwards supposedly sailed to Malta on April 25, 1919, on a Bermudian ship. He travelled to Malta following the 1917 Bolshevik revolution that toppled the Tsar, and lived initially with about 800 other Russian refu­gees in premises of a technical school, at a large, cold wooden military barracks, and at St Ignatius College, St Julian’s, which had been empty since 1907.

Design of ‘Sette Giugno Monument’ found within a file at the National Archives of Malta.

Facilities and services left much to be desired here. Governor Lord Methuen hosted Empress Maria Feodorovna and Russian aristocrats at San Anton Palace. Edwards was accompanied by Anastasia or Assia (Asya), the three-year-old daughter of his sister, Lidia. Lidia, his ‘guardian angel’ (sister) died in November 1918, from the Spanish Influenza.

Edwards was a personal friend of Maltese artist Gianni Vella. They built a friendship while on a state-funded scholarship at the Roman Accademia, and Edwards eventually moved in with Vella, until he found his own accommodation. Mary Vella mothered Assia, as if she were her own, in her initial years in Malta.

On February 28, 1922, it was announced that the refugees had to leave Malta and that their rations would stop. Many families were sent to Egypt to eventually be sent to Serbia, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia.

In late 1922, Assia and Boris were provided with a local passport and travelled through Europe. In Germany, in July 1921, he met and married his second wife, Rosa Reisz, who lived with him till his death. In Berlin, Edwards applied at the embassy for an official divorce from his first wife and to officially adopt Assia. He returned to Malta in January 1923.

Reverie by Boris Edwards. Photo: Courtesy of MUŻA, The National Community Art Museum – Heritage Malta

Edwards was seriously ill, as in 1896 in Yekaterinodar (Krasnodar) he contracted malaria and often had seizures. He also suffered from feelings of loneliness. Edwards was a workaholic, but a man of great will power and work ability, yet he strived to produce works without any assistant. He often felt he was not an artist but a simple bronze caster, who ordered materials and who produced kilns. He was a modest individual who stated: “…during these years of ordeals and grief I forgot even that I’m really a good artist”.

Edwards’ known works in Malta are a small bronze sculpture of a seated woman, known as Reverie (believed to be Mary, wife his artist friend Gianni Vella), a medallion affixed to the façade of a house in Valletta (15, Old Mint Street), commemorating Maltese politician Fortunato Mizzi, and the funerary monument of the fallen Maltese in the bread riots known as the Sette Giugno uprising in 1919.

Reverie, in the collection of MUŻA, is a piece that was replicated over 50 times by the artist.

Edwards strove to win commissions and also used to teach. He was made an honorary member of the Malta Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce in 1924. He died of apoplexy, on February 12, 1924, in his Bir­kirkara home and was buried at Ta’ Braxia Cemetery in Pietà. His wife and Assia left Malta for Hamburg on June 30, 1924.

Edwards was not forgotten by his homeland, and in 1993, the Odessa Art Museum held an exhibition of his works. In light of the current war, it is hoped that the cultural assets of these people are preserved for future generations to appreciate.

The author acknowledges the use of previous studies on the subject by Albert Ganado, Antonio Espinosa Rodriguez, Christian Attard, Giovanni Bonello, and Olga Barkovskaya.