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By Anna Kozmina
Post Staff Writer
Kyiv Post, Kyiv, Ukraine
December 21, 2000, Page 11D |
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From the 1920s through
the 1950s, Ukraine endured some of the most horrific tragedies
in the history of mankind.
More than 8 million people died in Ukraine during the forced
famines of the 1922 and 1933, twice the amount of causalities
suffered by the country during World War II.
Stalin's concentration camps claimed even more Ukrainian lives
than that. In another particular gruesome event in 1937, the
Stalin regime executed more than 1,000 members of the Ukrainian
intelligentsia - artists, writers and scientists - to mark
the 20th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution.
The tragedies did not end with the death of Stalin. Ukrainians
are still suffering from the after effects of the 1986 Chernobyl
explosion.
For more than half a century, the Soviet government kept these
tragedies a secret. It wasn't until after Ukraine declared
its independence in 1991 that the public finally learned the
truth. Since then, the poignant themes of holodomor-the Great
Famine-Soviet repression and Chernobyl have not dominated
Ukrainian art.
An exhibit currently being shown at the Teachers' House -
"Tragedy and Hope of the Nation Throught the Eyes of Ukrainian
Artists" - is the largest display ever of art dedicated exclusively
to the various tragedies experienced by Ukraine in the last
century.
"Now it is the time to show visually what happened, before
all the first- and second-generation participants are gone,
and because it can now be done without repression. There are
many people who need to see it, to express it, to feel it,
in order to bring some relief and expression to the bottled
up emotions", exhibit founder and organizer E.Morgan Williams
said.
A native of Kansas, Williams comes from a family of farmers
and has been heavily involved in agricultural and rural development-related
issues over the years. He says that the agricultural industry
in countries like Ukraine is an issue that touches him greatly.
"Ukraine is one of the most amazing 'gifted' agricultural
regions of the world, but has never reached its potential
because of politics and governments," Williams said. "The
Russian Czars and later the Soviet Union and its horrible
production-driven system ripped off and raped rural Ukraine,
and the present political and economic structure in Ukraine
continues doing the same thing".
Williams, who is the president of Ukraine Market Reform Group
and Ukraine Business Development and Investment Group, says
the country deserves better.
"It is easy for rural Ukraine, with its land, villages, folk
art, crafts and great people to capture one's interests and
one's heart - first out of great sadness, sorrow and disbelief
as to what has happened, but also with great joy for what
can be in the future", he said.
Williams has spent a great deal of time over the past five
years researching Soviet Ukraine's history from the 1920s
to the 1970s. From that research, he conceived the idea of
an exhibition featuring what he describes as "the art than
never was" - art that was never created because it was forbidden
or art that was created, but was destroyed.
The "Tragedy and Hope" exhibition grew out of that original
concept. It will be shown in 11 different cities around Ukraine
in 2001. Plans are to take the exhibition to Europe, the United
States and Canada in 2002-03 to mark the 70th anniversary
of the Great Famine of 1933.
This eerie exhibit features more than 300 pieces of art, including
posters, photos, paintings and postcards from the era often
referred to as Ukraine's holocaust. Photos taken in the 1930s
feature emaciated children who are too exhausted to move.
The paintings depict devastated villages, destroyed churches,
communist slogans and death carriages loaded with corpses.
Juxtaposed with this horror scenes are the cheerful socialist
realism works of the same period, depicting hardy peasants
and their plump, rosy-cheeked children clad in Pioneer uniforms.
"What happened in Ukraine must must be shown and remembered,
and it must never happen again, anywhere," Williams said.
nyakoz@kyivpost.com
editor@thepost.kiev.ua
www.kpnews.com
www.kyivpost.com
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