Nadezhda Nikolayevna Nadya Rusheva (31 January 1952 - 6 March 1969), Russian illustrator and graphic designer, promoted as an artistic phenomenon by the Soviet propaganda.
An early, yet sure talent, Rusheva was exploited by Soviet propaganda, being presented as a product of Communist artistic training, and also imposed an infernal schedule of work, which eventually caused the death of the artist at just 17 years old.
Her first drawings were discovered by the Moscow intelectual elite in 1964, when they were exhibited at the offices of Yunost, an important opposition periodical of that time. She continued to work a lot, proving to be a prolific artist and producing around 10.000 works in her short life, mostly ink and crayon compositions. Rusheva was inspired by the works of important 19th and 20th century authors, such as Pushkin or Antoine de Saint-Exupery, but especially by the amateur illustrations used to decorate old editions. Her most apreciated and liked works are the illustrations for War and Peace or Master and Margarita.
The oficial propaganda used the occasion and promoted Rusheva as a product of Communist education, and pushed her to work more and more, eventually causing her death. But even her early demise didn't put a stop to this, as the authorities organised a vast and impressive retrospective in 1970, at the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow, followed by a huge tour, between 1970 - 1974 throughout the Soviet Union.
