Who are we, craftmen or artists?" Debates on arts and crafts in the 1920s and 1930s

The article delineates some characteristic features of public debates on arts and crafts taking place in the Soviet Russia in the 1920s and 1930s. It demonstrates how the different types of knowledge concerning art impacted the governmental cultural politics. The author analyzes how the concept of "arts and crafts" was related to the alternative accounts. The institutional regulation of that domain was shaped by an understanding of the specific nature of "arts and crafts" as a cultural production. The author applies institutional approach to differentiate the interests of stakeholders engaged into regulation of the artistic industry in the USSR. The attention is paid to the Research Institute for Art Industry that brought together artistic and manufacturing responsibilities. In the second part of the paper, the author reconstructs the discussion between Anatoly Bakushinsky and Efim Vihrev, who were the patrons of "The Pal-ekh Artel of Ancient Painting". The archival materials help to disclose their struggling opinions on the development of the artels of arts and crafts. As the author argues, Bakushinsky and Vihrev's views represent the opposite approaches to the control of that sphere of cultural production. Furthermore, their discourse incorporated a dispute over the autonomy of art.