One of the best-known murals in the East Side Gallery shows former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Soviet Union at the time, and Erich Honecker, former General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of East Germany engaged in a passionate kiss. In Germany, the painting is generally called “The Kiss” or “Bruderkuss” (brotherly kiss). The artist himself named it, “Mein Gott hilf mir, diese toedliche Liebe zu ueberleben”, which translates to “My God help me to survive this deadly love”. The artist placed the title directly on the mural, in both the German and the Russian language.
Bruderkuss – the best-known mural in the East Side Gallery in Berlin, Germany. Photo © J. Elke Ertle, 2014. www.walled-in-berlin.com
The Russian artist Dmitri Vrubel created the well-known mural in the early 1990s. All of the 101 murals in the East Side Gallery, including “Bruderkuss”, are painted on the east side of a section of the former Berlin Wall. His painting is based on an actual photograph taken by French photographer Régis Bossu. It was taken at the 30th anniversary celebration of the founding of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) in 1979. In the photograph, the two Heads of State engage in the standard socialist greeting exchanged between two communist leaders of that era. The kiss is fraternal in nature. That is why the Germans call the painting “Bruderkuss”, brotherly kiss.
About the artist of Bruderkuss
Dmitri Vrubel was born in 1960 in Moscow into a family of engineers. https://theculturetrip.com/europe/russia/articles/5-things-you-should-know-about-dmitri-vrubel-a-must-read-artist-profile/As a teenager he started to paint and joined the Union of Artists when he was in his 20s. Soon thereafter, he opened his own gallery. After his wife left him, he devoted himself entirely to art and moved to East Berlin in 1990 to become a street artist. Vrubel has often been called a Bohemian artist because he likes being a free spirit. He loves to paint, write poetry and drink – not necessarily in that order – in his Berlin studio and has a penchant for creating provocative art, which sometimes ruffles feathers. Vrubel said about the “Bruderkuss” that he wanted to represent his undying love and fear of Russia and the Russian people.
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Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.
