Holodomor: Through the Eyes of Ukrainian Artists" Collection

ILLUSTRATIONS

MORGAN WILLIAMS, founder and trustee (Washington, DC, USA)*

"HOLODOMOR: THROUGH THE EYES OF UKRAINIAN ARTISTS" COLLECTION

The Holodomor (induced starvation, death for millions, genocide) against Ukrainians in the Soviet Union during 1932-1933 was one of the most cov- ered up, denied, and hidden major human tragedies in history. The Soviets used all of their many and severe repressive powers, from 1932 to 1998, to accomplish their program to deny and cover up the Holodomor. The news media and the artistic community are normally the first two major segments of a society to tell and show their own people and the world about such crimes against humanity. Of course in the Soviet Union the news media and artistic community were totally repressed in terms of writing about or creating artwork about the Holodomor. It was not until late 1998 that the silence was fmally broken in Ukraine. In 1997 I started having discussions with Dr. James Mace, noted Holodo- mor researcher and scholar, about the Holodomor and what could be done to tell more people about it, to inform the world about the human suffering im- posed against Ukrainians under Stalin. We both knew it was important to have the best scholarship and research but it is also important to show such human suffering visually. We soon started discussing the fact that almost no photographs existed that could be documented to have been from Ukraine in 1932-1933. Most of the photographs used to depict the Holodomor in books and other materials in the past were actually taken in the Soviet Union during the famine of 1921- 1923. Only around 20 photographs taken in Kharkiv have been documented. Materials published about the Holodomor either did not use visuals

* Morgan Williams is director, government affairs, Washington office, for the SigmaBleyzer private equity investment management company. He serves as president of the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council (USUBC) and is the founder/editor of the Action Ukraine Report . (AUR). Williams serves on the international, USA and Ukraine Holodomor 75th commemora- tion committees. He is the founder/trustee of the "Holodomor: Through The Eyes of Ukrainian Artists" collection. He was awarded a presidential medal from President Yushchenko in 2007 for his service to Ukraine. Williams has been working on economic and business development of Ukraine since 1993. or just used photographs taken ten years earlier in Russia, mostly along the Volga River. Many publications even mislabeled such photographs as Ukraine. Unfortunately some of these Russian photographs are still being used today to show the Holodomor. Jim and I also discussed the arts community in Ukraine and how so many of them were murdered, sent to the Gulag or severely repressed during the Soviet era. The fear of creating any art, music, literature, etc. related to the crimes of the Soviet Union was strong, real and very effective in limiting the arts community. Jim mentioned that even still in 1997 most artists in Ukraine would not deal with such negative and controversial subjects. So in 1997 I began a search in Ukraine to find any artworks about the Holodomor that existed and to fmd artists who would be willing, out of their family memory and artistic souls, to deal with the Holodomor and other Soviet crimes. The first Holodomor artworks I found in Kyiv were 15 outstanding posters created from 1989 to 1993 by poster and graphic artists who had be trained in Soviet times but were willing to break out of the restrictions of the past. Poster art is a great medium to use to depict political and governmental crimes. They had been collected by two young artists, Volodymyr and Irena Veshtak. These were the first artworks purchased for the collection. The search continued and soon more poster art was found and also oil on canvas works and pencil on paper graphics. Finally a few artists were found, who because of what they had been told about their family members who died in the Holodomor, were willing over, time to consider creating new Holodomor related artworks. I found one graphics artist, Volodomyr Kutkin, who as a young art student in Kyiv, had been sent to the Gulag for five years. During the last twelve years of his life he created 120 pencil on paper artworks about his personal experiences during the Holodomor and in the Gulag. All of these original artworks are now in the collection. Another graphics (linocut) artist who designed bookplates, Mykola Bon- darenko, from the Sumy Oblast', in 1988 started to interview everyone in his local area that survived the Holodomor. He soon became fascinated with their descriptions of the various items their parents tried to fix for them to eat in their fight for survival. From 1998 to 1993 he created 1 artwork for every item he was told someone tried to eat. Mykola created over 60 such artworks and took them to Lenin's home- town and displayed them in 1993. Mykola has continued to create Holodo- mor artworks and there are now over 80 of them. The collection contains copies of all of Mykola's artwork. In 1999 I found Nina Marchenko, an artist in Kyiv who grew up in the Poltava Oblast'. Nina had been repressed by the Soviets as her interest was in painting large Soviet Socialist Realism Monumental artworks that showed the trials and tribulations of Soviet women. She did not want to create artworks than only showed "Glory to the Soviet Union."