HOLODOMOR IN THE LIFE AND WORK OF THE ARTIST MYKHAILO DMYTRENKO

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to identify and comprehensively examine the visual works of the artist, art historian and organizer of Ukrainian artistic life in Ukraine, Germany, Canada and the USA Mykhailo Dmytrenko (1908–1997) on the theme of the Holodomor, as well as to analyze his testimonies about the tragedy of the Ukrainian nation in 1932–1933. Тhe research methods are historical-genetic, comparative, iconographic and iconological analysis. Тhе results. For the first time, data on the representation of the Holodomor genocide in the visual works of the artist and organizer of cultural life M. Dmytrenko have been comprehensively synthesized. He was a direct witness to the Holodomor and one of the first artists to depict it in his work, despite psychological difficulties and potential threats from the USSR and its supporters in the West. It has been established that already in 1941 he created the expressionistic drawings “This is how you see it” and, probably, “You can go crazy”, which reflected the traumatic experience of the Ukrainian people experiencing the genocide. The study carried out a comprehensive art-historical analysis of the work of Mykhailo Dmytrenko as the author of stamp designs for the Ukrainian Underground Post on the theme of the Holodomor, eliminating a historiographical gap in the study of small forms of Ukrainian diaspora graphics and their role in countering Soviet propaganda. Non-postal stamps have become one of the channels of informing the Ukrainian and world public about the crimes of the communist regime. It has been established that the sketches of all products of the Underground Post of Ukraine (Foreign Postal Department of the OUN-r) on the theme of the Holodomor – two series of stamps of 1953 and 1958 – were made by M. Dmytrenko. The same stamps were used to create a 1962 sticker block, issued to mark the 30th anniversary of the tragedy. In addition, the images created by M. Dmytrenko for these miniatures were used for other PPU products about the crimes of the communist totalitarian USSR. It was also established that the graphic versions of the images depicted on the stamps were further developed in the artist’s painting. Conclusions. The identified and analyzed PPU issues for 1953–1967 prove that propaganda non-postal stamps became one of the key visual tools of the Ukrainian liberation movement in the diaspora. The stamps, created by a direct witness to the genocide, are a special type of visual source from the history of collective memory and commemoration. They not only record the fact of the Holodomor, but also represent the efforts of a part of the Ukrainian emigration to highlight this crime of the communist regime of the USSR. It has been confirmed that the painting “1933” (1963) is a programmatic work on the theme of genocide in the work of M. Dmytrenko. It is in this canvas that the author, through the symbolism of the “red wagon” and chthonic space, most fully visualized the confrontation between the totalitarian system of the communist and imperial USSR and the victim of a grave crime – the Ukrainian people.