Young Ukrainian Artist of the 1950's-1960's
Repressed and Murdered By The Soviets

The Life Of Alla Horska in "The Contemporary Ukrainian Woman: Her Role In The Resistance Movement" By Natalia I. Pazuniak, 1977 "How much suffering and dignity in those sorrowful women's faces..." By Eugene Svertyuk   "True art reflects the essence of its object. It leaves its trace on our soul: we identify ourselves with it." "Eugene Sverstyuk's words refer to the portraits and graphics of Alla Horska, an artist-monumentalist whose life path was violently curtailed. Horska fathomed the tragic fate of the Ukrainian woman and found means to reflect this in her art."

Flowers And Photograph Of Alla Horska At Alla Horska's Funeral In Kyiv, Ukraine Monday, December 7, 1970 Original Photograph (Private Collection)

"In these times, when the Soviet regime denies the most elementary rights to the Ukrainian people for self-expression and adulterates the entire life with Russification --when every manifestation of individual thought is being thought is being denigrated--it behooves one to struggle for the mere existence of the native Ukrainian language and culture. This struggle has become personified at all levels of society in Ukraine through her intellectuals, men and women alike..."

Large Crowd Of Mourners At The Funeral Of Alla Horska Kyiv, Ukraine December 7, 1970 Original Photograph (Private Collection)

"...The post-Stalin period, specifically the beginning of the 1960's, was marked by a renewed desire for freedom among the young generation. This attitude emerged, a phoenix of the past's ashes, among the so-called "Shestydesiatnyky". In poetry, the voice of Lina Kostenko sang a fresh breath of air in literature. Her ardo kindled the spirit of her younger colleagues." "In the fine arts, another brave women, Alla Horska, became active. Young talented artists turned to her as a wise friend and counselor. Yet Horska for long was a neophyte as regards

Ukrainian spiritual life. Not raised as a Ukrainian, she came to recognize her own identity only in her mature years. It was then that she became active as an artist, as a fighter for the human rights of persecuted intellectuals and as a leader among younger artists."

"She established her Club Of Creative Youth, a group which was active in 1963-64, only to be disbanded soon thereafter by the Soviet authorities. Horska had the temerity to write petitions to ranking Soviet attorneys protesting against the violations of human rights by the KGB (the Soviet Secret police). Her petitions posed this question: Is it acceptable, in a land allegedly governed by a constitution, to restrict rights of freedom of speech, print and assembly, and to imprison citizens for the 'crime' of reading a book, that espouses an adverse ideology?" "In 1964 Horska, together with other artists (Ludmyla Semykina, Halyna Sevryuk and Opanas Zalyvakha), created a stained glass window for the foyer of

Alla Horska's Artist Studio Exhibition of Her Art Works Displayed In Her Honor By Her Friends On the Day Of Her Funeral In Kyiv, Ukraine December 7, 1970. Original Photograph (Private Collection)

"By order of the Communist party and the KGB, the stained glass window was destroyed owing to the artwork's "ideological inconsistency" and its "modern artistic" approach. As an aftermath of loud public criticism at a meeting of the Association of Ukrainian Artists, Alla Horska suffered years of persecution and eventually was murdered on November 28, 1970, near Kiev, presumably on the order of the KGB."

"To her friends Alla remained a symbol of the Ukrainian women who does not walk down life's journey along paths smoothed down by half-truths; a woman whose sole goal is absolute Truth, Love, and Beauty.*...

..."The persecution of free thought in Ukraine is so chilling that the repercussions of most cases resound far beyond the borders of Ukraine. Take the case of Tatyana Chodorovych, who has included in her activities in defense of human rights the cause of the Ukrainian intelluctuals L. Plyushch and V. Moroz. Member of the Institute of Russian Language of the Academy of Arts and Science of the U.S.S.R., she expressed her credo in the following words: "We are against the lie and falsehood which penetrate our State.The word is called upon in this state to annihilate truth, to suppress sincere thought. But we know only one law--the law of our conscience. We have a natural ability to sympathize with the persecuted. We honor every human being how struggles for free expression, for genuine truth***"

"The opposition to this lie, this struggle for the victory of the truth, is beginning to dominate in the various manifestations of action and behavior of Ukrainian women in contemporary Ukraine. This posture of moral determination constitutes their major role in the resistance movement of contemporary Ukraine."

(*The data on Horska have been gathered from the Ukrainian press, according to the "Ukrainian Herald"-- Samvydav, 1970)

(***This quotation, from the collection of documents in defense of L. Plyushch, gathered by T. Chodorovych, was published in the Ukrainian press.)

"Ukraine In A Changing World"
Papers Presented At A Conference Dedicated
To The 30th Anniversary Of The Founding Of
"The Ukrainian Quarterly"
Walter Dushnyck, Ph.D., Editor
Published by Ukrainian Congress Committee of America
New York, New York, 1977, Pages 145-147