﻿On February 27 2022, this happened.
In case you didn’t know, this is a museum in the town of Ivankiv, near the Ukrainian
capital of Kyiv. Now, before I start the video, I want to note that, given the context of war,
information is difficult to assess and verify. Both sides of the conflict can distort information
in order to help their respective war effort, weather it be to influence foreign observers or
to keep the morale up for their people. Keep that in mind throughout the video.
The Ivankiv Historical and Local History Museum was reportedly burned by the Russian
troops following their occupation of the city. Notably, the museum had
works of Ukrainian painter Maria Prymachenko, perhaps one of Ukraine’s most notable artist.
Prymachenko was born in 1908 in a small village close to Kyiv of a peasant family. Her father
was a carpenter, her mother would teach her traditional Ukrainian crafts such as embroidery.
She started making art from a very young age, creating from
instinct and dreams and inspired by peasant life and Ukrainian folklore.
In the mid 30s, Primachenko was discovered by another Ukrainian artist, Tetiana Floru,
who invited her to the Central Experimental Workshop of the Kyiv Museum of Ukrainian Art.
From there, her career took off, if we can even call it a career.
The reason I say that is because Primachenko reportedly never sold her art,
not because of a lack of interest, but because she’d prefer giving it away to family and friends.
She would gain international renown, exposing across Europe,
Japan, Canada, Australia... Picasso would even notice her and praize her:
"I bow down before the artistic miracle of this brilliant Ukrainian."
Her art was labeled “Naïve’’, naive art being the creation of an artist who hasn’t received formal
training, very often giving the art a frankness and candour which is very often associated
with art made by children. This honesty and authenticity really makes Prymachenko and her art
extremely likeable. Who couldn’t love this artist who paints for her friends and family,
who paints like she always has, not for fame, nor money, but because she genuinely loves it?
Her themes make her even more likeable, advocating for world solidarity
and peace. Here in May I Give This Ukrainian Bread to All People in This Big Wide World,
she portrays herself surrounded by sunflowers, offering bread. Similarly,
she also painted Flowers for Peace and A Dove Has Spread Her Wings And Asks for Peace.
In some dark ironic twist, 25 of Prymachenko’s work would burn following the Russian invasion,
and what I want to briefly mention in this video is the importance of art in a context of war.
I don’t mean art as propaganda for war or art as a denunciation of war, but art as a factor in war.
Here’s a quote from the abstract of a publication on the Intentional Destruction
of Cultural Heritage by Federico Lenzerini :
“In most instances of deliberate destruction of cultural heritage, the target of perpetrators
is not the heritage in itself but, rather, the communities and persons for whom the heritage
is of special significance. This reveals a clear discriminatory and persecutory intent
against the targeted cultural groups, or even against the international community as a whole.
As such, intentional destruction of cultural heritage, in addition
of being qualified as a war crime, is actually to be considered as a crime against humanity.”
In the context of war, targeting a museum is not of little significance.
Art can be the manifestation of a people’s voice, the manifestation of a culture
in an object. What it represents transcends the artist, the artwork
becomes much more than Prymachenko, it becomes much more than what it depicts,
it becomes a symbol of a culture, a testament to the culture of a people
in a given place and time. It’s the material evidence of the existence of a people’s culture.
Any art reflects a culture and its people and destroying a work of art, is, at best,
attacking the people it represents and, at worst, trying to erase them.
The burning of the Ivankiv museum, if it actually was a targeted destruction by the Russian forces
as it has been alleged, is not only an attack on an institution, on any building or on one of
Ukraine’s possible outings. It’s an attack on the culture of Ukraine and its people,
an attempt to demoralize them, to exhaust them, to erase them.
However, the Ukrainian people have shown themselves to be extremely resilient,
not only in the resistance to Russian invaders, but also in the very story I presented. According
to Anastasia Prymachenko, Maria’s grand-daughter, 10 out of 25 works of art were saved.
A man reportedly entered the burning building, risked his life, and saved some of the artworks.
This is not only a testament to the life-risking resistance and defiance of the Ukrainian people,
but also to the intuitive importance and significance of cultural objects.
The man who entered the building probably didn’t have time to ponder about the cultural
and national relevance of the artworks exposed, he intuitively knew that their destruction
would be a critical hit to the Ukrainian people, so he risked his life to save them.
Very often on this channel when I analyze different artworks, I’m usually more
interested in the content, the message and the meaning behind a painting. The artwork becomes,
in a way, more of an idea than an object. In a world of reproduction, it’s sometimes
easy to forget that there’s “the real thing” somewhere in the world and this “real thing” is,
in a way, a cultural artefact. It’s a shrine to a specific culture, to a specific people.
The paintings of Maria Prymachenko, even if they ended up all destroyed, will continue to live
through reproductions. However, to many people, their material form is as important,
if not more, than their immaterial form. The object, being the material evidence
of the existence of a people’s culture, is sacred, especially in times of war.