Marc Chagall met his first great love Bella Rosenfeld in Vitebsk in 1909 and returned to his hometown because he missed her. Caught by surprise by the outbreak of war, Chagall remained in Russia. After the October Revolution, he was appointed Commissioner of the Arts for Vitebsk and founded a modern art museum and an art school. The Chagalls returned to paris in 1924, leaving the conflicts in the art schooland the famine-ridden Soviet Union behind them.