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Moscow and "The Wanderers" (1876–1885)

Repin returned to Russia in 1876. His son Yury was born the following year. He moved to Moscow that year, and produced a wide variety of works including portraits of the painters Arkhip Kuindzhi and Ivan Shishkin. He became involved with the "Wanderers", an artistic movement founded in St. Petersburg in 1863. The style of the Wanderers was resolutely realistic, patriotic, and politically engaged, determined to break with classical models and to create a specifically Russian art. It involved not only painters, but sculptors, writers and composers.

Repin created a series of major historical works, including the Religious Procession in Kursk Governorate (1883), which was presented at the 12th annual exposition of the Wanderers. It was notable both for its extraordinary crowd of realistic figures, including surly policemen, weary monks, children and beggars, each expressing a vivid personality. He also experimented with outdoor sunlight effects, apparently influenced by the impressionists and his outdoor studies in France. His next major work of this period was Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan. This painting, depicting the tsar, his face full of horror, just after he has killed his son with his sceptre in a demented rage. It caused a scandal. Some critics saw it as a veiled criticism of Tsar Alexander III, who had brutally suppressed the opposition after a failed assassination attempt. It was also attacked by the more aesthetic faction of the Wanderers, who considered it overly sensationalist. It was vandalised twice and was finally, at the tsar's request, removed from view. The tsar reconsidered his decision, and the painting was finally put back on view.

The portrait of the Tsarevna Sophia Alekseyevna is one of his most tragic historical works. It depicts The daughter of Tsar Alexis who became regent of Russia after the death of her father, but then was deposed from power in 1689 and locked away in a convent by her half-brother, Peter the Great. The painting captures her fury as she realises her future life.

"They Did Not Expect Him". (1884-1888),(Tretyakov Gallery) is a notable and subtle historical work of the period, depicting a young man, a former "narodniki" or revolutionary, emaciated and frail from prison and exile, returning unexpectedly to his family. The story is told by the different expressions on the faces of his family and small details, such as the portraits of Tsar Alexander III and of favourite Russian poets on the wall.