A Person Cannot Live Without a Miracle

Varvara Fyodorovna Stepanova (1894–1958) was a Soviet artist, graphic designer, and one of the first creators of constructivism and the "Amazon of the Avant-garde." Together with her husband Alexander Rodchenko, she worked on the design of exhibitions and performances, served as art director for several magazines, and created fabric and costume designs. Stepanova's works were exhibited alongside those of her outstanding contemporaries: Kandinsky, Tatlin, Malevich, Rozanova, and Popova. Additionally, she had a unique gift for accurately capturing and documenting the events with her inherent sensitivity and insight. Diary entries, articles, and reports by Stepanova from different years have been compiled in this book by Alexander Lavrentyev and Ekaterina Lavrentyeva – her grandson and great-granddaughter. Thanks to these texts, we learn about the development of Soviet art in the first half of the 20th century directly from the mouth of a participant in those events, who considered creativity to be a "miracle" and pursued this "miracle" throughout her life.