“The title is symbolic: the Shiite archer, representing the Asian creator, galloping on the border between the Western and Eastern worlds, his face turned towards the immense East (the Russian multinational empire, Persia, China, Japan, India), with only half an eye observing what comes from the West. The meaning of the metaphor is clear, perhaps arguable, but deliberately provocative: Russian avant-garde art exists in itself; it finds the necessary forms, the creative inspiration, on its own terrain”. Benedikt Livšic's memoirs, which cover a crucial period of artistic development in Russia, are of fundamental importance in the reconstruction of the epic of the expressive revolution of the first two decades of the twentieth century. Introduction by Jean Claude Marcadé.