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Art and culture, along with language and history, are battlegrounds in Russia’s war in Ukraine. Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s towns and cities not only cost lives and livelihoods but destroy museums, libraries and sites of enormous historical and cultural significance.
And this destruction is not simply an accidental by-product of war. The United Nations has accused Russia of deliberately targeting Ukrainian culture.
The physical destruction of Ukraine’s cultural past and present is accompanied by claims from Vladimir Putin that Ukraine is not a real country and does not have a distinct language, history and culture separate from Russia.
It is against this background that the Royal Academy of Arts (RA) in London is hosting an exhibition of Ukrainian art. Titled In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine, 1900-1930s, it brings together 65 pieces of art loaned by Ukrainian museums.
All the works of art displayed were created during a period of intense political and creative change. At the start of the 20th century Ukraine was divided, with western territories claimed by the Austro-Hungarian Empire and eastern regions ruled by Russia. Even in the absence of a single, sovereign Ukrainian state, however, Ukrainians asserted their national identity through the preservation of their language and traditions and the development of their culture, including art.
Many of the Ukrainian artists whose work is exhibited at the RA were influenced by the prevailing creative movements of their time – such as cubism, futurism and constructivism. Some studied or worked abroad, especially in Paris. But while they were eager to explore these new styles and techniques in their own work, they were also committed to incorporating elements of distinctively Ukrainian artistic and folk traditions.
When the political turmoil created by the first world war and the collapse of empires offered Ukraine the brief opportunity of independent statehood between 1917 and 1921, Ukrainian artists were already in the process of developing a distinct Ukrainian style, as part of a wider project of nation-building.
Efforts to eliminate culture
Although Ukraine was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1922, Ukrainian artists enjoyed another decade of respite before cultural conformity was imposed by Moscow. In an effort to undermine popular support for an independent Ukraine, the Bolsheviks initially adopted a policy of “Ukrainianisation”. This involved actively encouraging the development of Ukrainian culture and the use of the Ukrainian language. As a result, Ukrainian artists and art flourished during the 1920s.
In the 1930s, however, Stalin’s agricultural policies brought a terrible famine to Ukraine, known as Holodomor (killing by starvation) that took the lives of millions. Stalin’s efforts to eliminate ideological challenges through the Great Purges also halted this period of artistic and cultural freedom.
Individuals and communities that were judged by Stalin and the Soviet political leadership to be out of step with the course charted by the state were identified and punished. The very features that made Ukrainian Modernist art lively and distinctive – such as its folk culture influences – were condemned as examples of “bourgeois nationalism”.
Saving art
Some Ukrainian artists were either already living abroad or managed to flee. But others, along with poets, novelists and theatre directors, were arrested and either executed or sentenced to years of imprisonment in the gulag. Much of their work was destroyed in an effort to wipe out all traces of Ukrainian national culture.
Many of the pieces that survived were saved almost by accident – through being sent to secret storage facilities and all but forgotten by the regime in the chaos of the second world war. One of the most haunting thoughts that lingers long after visiting the exhibition at the RA is how much Ukrainian art from this period was destroyed, and how little remains.
The parallels between the threat to Ukrainian culture in the 1930s and today are unmistakable. In Stalin’s time, evidence of Ukrainian national identity had to be eradicated because it contradicted Soviet ideology about the supremacy of class consciousness over other identities. For Putin, cultural practices, traditions and objects that are distinctively Ukrainian cannot be tolerated because they contradict his claims that Russians and Ukrainians are really one people, with a common past and a common future.
This exhibition, which so poignantly underlines the close connection between art and politics, almost didn’t happen at all. The artworks on display were evacuated from Kyiv under Russian missile bombardment in the autumn of 2022. Their survival echoes the fragility of Ukrainian statehood as a result of Russia’s war. The very fact that both Ukraine and its art continue to exist is a testament to the determination and perseverance of Ukraine’s people.
There is an important difference, however, between the plight of Ukrainians in the 1930s and today.
In Stalin’s time, Ukrainians had few international supporters. Western states were preoccupied with their own problems, especially the Great Depression in the United States and the rise of fascism in Europe.
Influential figures on the political left, such as Sidney and Beatrice Webb and George Bernard Shaw, regarded Soviet communism as a positive and progressive force. The western news media largely accepted Stalin’s denials of famine and repression, apart from a few brave journalists, such as Gareth Jones, who travelled to Ukraine and reported on what they had seen.
Read more: Destruction of Ukrainian heritage: why losing historical icons can leave a long shadow
Today, by contrast, Ukraine has support from both governments and societies around the world. Ukrainians fleeing from Russia’s war have been welcomed in other countries. Ukraine’s government receives financial and military aid in its efforts to resist Russia’s invading forces and to rebuild homes, schools and hospitals.
Visiting an art exhibition may seem like an insignificant response to an unrelenting war. But at a time when Ukrainian cultural history is being threatened with erasure, educating ourselves about that history is both a practical and a symbolic act of support for Ukraine.
Jennifer Mathers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
