Siege of Kazan

Siege of Kazan, painted in 1914 in tempera and now in the National Gallery of Armenia, depicts the decisive military campaign of 1552 in which Ivan the Terrible's armies captured the Tatar Khanate of Kazan, a major expansion of Russian power eastward into formerly Mongol-controlled territory. The siege was a landmark event in Russian imperial history, opening the Volga corridor to Siberia and the east and setting the template for Russian eastward expansion that would eventually reach the Pacific. Roerich's treatment of this historical subject connects his interest in the conflicts between Russian state-building and the nomadic cultures of the steppe to the specific moment when Muscovite Russia definitively broke Tatar power on its eastern frontier.

Tempera on an unspecified support allows for the flat, luminous color organization that Roerich favored for historical subjects requiring an archaic, non-naturalistic atmosphere. The matte quality of tempera evokes the wall painting traditions he associated with ancient and medieval visual cultures.