Ukrainian Geniuses Who Changed the European Culture of the 20th Century
The dramatic history of Ukrainian statehood often left Ukrainian artists few opportunities to fully realize their creative talents. They faced the anti-Ukrainian pressure policy of the Russian Empire, Bolshevik hatred of authentic manifestations of avant-garde and contemporary Ukraine-centered art, and, later, the Red Terror organized by the Kremlin, which targeted artists for even a hint of pro-Ukrainian position.
Despite its dramatic nature, this development also had positive consequences for European art. Hundreds of talented Ukrainians realized their potential outside the country of their birth, leaving a significant mark on the European and global artistic context.
Serge Lifar
Source: Wikipedia
On April 15, 1905, a boy who was destined to change European ballet was born to Mykhailo Lifar, an official of the Kyiv city's Department of Water and Forestry.
The future genius of dance entered the Imperial Oleksandrivska Gymnasium in Kyiv. At the time, he dreamed of a career as a pianist. However, during the Bolshevik offensive on Kyiv, Serhii was wounded in the arm and had to forget about music.
As a spectator, Serhii Lifar accidentally found himself attending a class with the famous ballerina Bronislava Nizhynska and fell in love with ballet. However, the prima is skeptical of the Kyivan's prospects.
In 1921, Nizhynska received an invitation to work as a choreographer in Paris.
Later, she got the opportunity to invite five of her best students, but Serhii was not on the list.
"It was 1921. I was sixteen years old when we received the shocking news... It goes without saying that I was not chosen... It turned out that the borders were closed, and any attempt to leave the Soviet Union without special permission was considered desertion and punishable by death. One of the five selected dancers refused to leave. At the very last moment, I was offered to go as a replacement," Lifar recalled in his diary.
After several attempts, Lifar made it to Paris. Through perseverance, the "unpromising" student became a leading dancer. The main role in the ballet Icarus turned Lifar into a star of European and world ballet.
In the West, he enjoyed a triumph – the best scenes, applause, and admiration, but his family remained in Ukraine. Lifar was able to come to Kyiv only 40 years later.
On his grave, in the famous Parisian cemetery of Saint-Geneviève de Bois, Serhii Lifar bequeathed the following inscription: "Serge Lifar from Kyiv".
Varvara Karinska
Source: Houghton Library, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, By Christine Jacobson
An Oscar winner, the Shakespeare of ballet costume, a star of the London and Paris theater stages, a creator of costumes based on Salvador Dali's sketches – this is all about Varvara Karinska, the Ukrainian woman born in Kharkiv.
She was born in October 1886 in the estate of the millionaire merchant Zhmudskyi. Little Varia, as her family called her, showed interest and talent for embroidery and needlework from an early age. However, she decided to get a law degree.
The 1917 Revolution changed Karinska's life. Together with her children, she emigrated to France. In Paris, Varvara created costumes for the Scheherazade movie. Famous European artists and choreographers become her friends.
Varvara designed costumes for six ballets by choreographer George Balanchine. Together with Jean Cocteau, she designed costume performances. She gains more popularity and opens another theater costume studio in the UK, and a few years later moves to the United States.
In New York, she designs the Salvador Dali exposition at the 1939 World's Fair. She gets a job at the School of American Ballet and later becomes the chief stylist of the New York City Ballet. The costumes created by the Kharkiv woman are called "perfect". The images for the performances "Waltz", "Scottish Symphonies", "Jewels" become classics.
Karinska's invention of the so-called powderpuff tutu revolutionizes world ballet, replacing heavy iron corsets with soft chiffon skirts.
At the same time, the Ukrainian is designing stage costumes for Hollywood. The image for the movie "Joan of Arc" became historical.
The budget of the film was $200,000, and Victor Fleming (author of Gone with the Wind) was involved in the work. But everything turned out at risk when the information about the adultery of the lead actress Ingrid Bergman caused a scandal. The image of the Virgin of New Orleans was in no way associated with the principles of free marriage.
Karinska's ideas saved the film. Moving away from the classic erotic and glamorous images, Karinska's Joan of Arc appeared in ascetic, historically accurate costumes, removing any negative contexts.
The film won 9 Oscars, one of which rightfully went to the Ukrainian artist.
Kazimir Malevich
Source: Wikipedia
A classic of world art, Kazimir Malevich was born in 1879 in Kyiv in the family of a sugar production engineer Severin Malevich. During his childhood, he traveled extensively throughout Ukraine. He lived with his parents in Podillia, Slobozhanshchyna, and Polissia regions.
The future genius studied painting with Mykola Pimonenko at the Kyiv Art School.
Malevich is one of the founders of abstract art, the author of the neo-modernist movement, Suprematism. The legendary work "Black Square on a White Background" was first published on December 7, 1915 and immediately became iconic.
Upon returning to Kyiv, Malevych taught at the Kyiv Art Institute, collaborating with Ukrainian geniuses of fine art Fedir Krychevskyi, Mykhailo Boichuk, Viktor Palmovyi, Vadym Meller, and Oleksandr Bohomazov.
But the beginning of total repressions against Ukrainians forced Malevich to look for a way to immigrate. He manages to take the archive to Berlin, but does not stay in Europe. Malevich was arrested in 1930, and during interrogation he called himself a Ukrainian. Kazimir is deprived of his positions and the opportunity to work, the artist becomes seriously ill and eventually dies.
Volodymyr Horowitz
Source: Wikipedia
Volodymyr Horowitz, a third-generation Kyivan, became known as one of the most famous pianists of the 20th century. He studied at the Kyiv Conservatory. When the reputable composer and pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff visited Kyiv, he refused to listen to Horowitz play, and years later he believed that Volodymyr played his third concerto better than he did.
Horowitz began touring in the 1920s. Day after day, he performed Liszt, Chopin, Schumann, Bach, and Mozart.
At the same time, the Bolshevik authorities persecuted Horowitz's family. Samuel Horowitz was sentenced to two years in prison for opposing the revolution, because during the Central Rada and the Hetmanate he traveled to negotiate with the Germans as a trade specialist.
During one of Horowitz's concerts, the Austrian pianist Arthur Schnabel heard him play and advised the genius to emigrate. In the winter of 1925, Horowitz officially left for Berlin for a tour and studies and never returned.
Horowitz made a furor in Europe.
"After a series of concerts in Paris, the critics classified the pianist as a 'king artist,'" wrote scholar Lesia Turchak. - "At one of the concerts, the gendarmes had to be called in to remove the musician's rabid fans, who refused to leave the hall.
After conquering Europe, Horowitz traveled to America. Carnegie Hall in New York, then Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and the White House. Horowitz quickly gained the status of a historical figure on the world music scene.
Ivan Marchuk
Source: Wikipedia
Ivan Marchuk is a contemporary genius. The inventor of original technique, which he named 'pliontanism' (from the word 'pliontaty' - to weave, intertwine, entangle). The artist applies an countless number of strokes and lines, which, intertwining, create a voluminous image. "Looking at it - you don't see boundaries, you don't see a beginning and an end, but you see the endless variability and interpenetration of the world," art critics write. Marchuk's unique style brought him worldwide fame.
However, during the times of the USSR, the artist's work "did not conform to the norms of socialist realism". Marchuk could not officially exhibit his works and suffered persecution and oppression from the KGB. Until 1988, the Union of Artists did not officially recognize Marchuk's work. Without opportunities for realization, the artist emigrated to Australia, later to Canada and the USA.
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Today, the legacy of the Ukrainian genius includes approximately 5000 works, and his pieces are exhibited in the world's most prestigious galleries.
Despite the unfavorable circumstances for artists who emigrated from Ukraine, some managed to realize their talents abroad. Unfortunately, these are unique individual cases - where talent had the opportunity to flourish against all odds. It remains only to wonder - how bright Ukrainian contributions to the world of art would be if Ukrainians had a less dramatic historical fate.