Радостная встреча. Александр Малиновский

In mid 1960s the first materials were published about Grigory Zhuravlev of Utevka – an extraordinary self-educated peasant icon-painter who was born with no legs or arms and painted by clutching a paintbrush between his teeth. He was discovered and revealed to the world by Alexander Stanislavovich Malinovsky who started to collect information about his extraordinary fellow-countryman. He had a chance to talk to people who knew Zhuravlev personally and was able to find his icons. Ever since the destiny of the artist icon-painter was leading the writer in many respects. Striving to discover new information he was working in the archives of Moscow and Samara, visited St. Sergius Trinity Laura and St. Petersburg with its major museums, as well as many other places in Russia, were he was looking for information about Zhuravlev and his icons. As material was building up this book gradually developed. The first part of the novel was published in 1992. It was titled “Ashes of the past”. Later in 1994 the novel was published as a separate book under the title “Joyous Encounter”. This is the sixth edition of the novel, that is published in two languages – English and Russian. A.S. Malinovsky’s work resulted not only in books. The article about Grigory Zhuravlev written by A.S. Malinovsky was published in Orthodox Encyclopedia under editorship of Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, separate materials were published in journals “Citizen”, “Novel Journal of the 21st century”, “All Russian Assembly” and others. In Utevka village, homeland of the artist, there is a museum of Grigory Zhuravlev now and cathedral originally painted by him, was restored. There is also a permanent exhibition dedicated to this unique artist icon-painter in Samara Eparchy Museum.