World War II: Remembered, Reimagined, Retold

The canvas that speaks

(KPL) “History is not meant to be forgotten, but to teach people kindness.” With this conviction, Russian concept artist Marina Nechaeva transforms personal memory and collective trauma into vibrant works of art.

In the second episode of CGTN’s docuseries “World War II: Remembered, Reimagined, Retold,” Nechaeva shared her family story with CGTN Host Huang Jiyuan, a story marked by survival against impossible odds: Her great-great-grandmother lived through the Siege of Leningrad, enduring hunger, freezing winters, and the daily threat of bombardment.

At times, survival meant eating melted sugar scraped from the bomb-scorched ground. That resilience, coupled with extraordinary luck, shaped the stories passed down to Marina, and in turn, the themes that now flow through her brush.

For Marina, who now lives and works in the city of Guangzhou in southern China’s Guangdong Province, concept art is not simply about creating characters or imagined worlds; it is about world-building that reflects her yearning for beauty and peace.

Sitting in front of her canvas, she immerses herself in the act of world-making — a process she likens to crafting entire universes, day after day. Yet these worlds are never divorced from history. Each painting is infused with questions addressed to the past and an aspiration for a more humane future.

The episode draws a poignant connection between St. Petersburg and Guangzhou — two cities scarred by WWII.

Leningrad suffered nearly 900 days of siege, where starvation and cold claimed more lives than bombs.

Guangzhou, from 1937 to 1938, endured relentless bombardment that killed thousands of civilians and left streets littered with devastation.

By weaving these histories together, the episode underscores how war trauma transcends borders, binding people in a shared legacy of suffering and resilience.

Marina’s relatives, like many survivors, seldom spoke about the horrors they endured. Silence became its own form of survival, an attempt to bury memories too painful to confront.

Yet Marina insists on the importance of remembering. Forgetting, she warns, risks distortion or erasure of the truth. To her, transmitting these stories is an act of kindness — a way of teaching future generations empathy and respect for other cultures.

Ultimately, it is less about war than about what comes after: The pursuit of peace, the responsibility of memory, and the hope that history’s darkest chapters can guide us toward compassion.

From St. Petersburg to Guangzhou, from blood-soaked streets to quiet studios, Marina’s journey illustrates how art can transform inherited trauma into a universal call for kindness. It reminds us that history is not distant. It lives within us, in our choices, and in the world we dare to imagine.

KPL