I am Ada Wordsworth, a PhD student working on Ukrainian Studies at UCL. Since September, I have also been based part-time at the V&A, exploring Ukrainian cultural heritage at the museum. The V&A is home to a wealth of Ukrainian objects, spanning centuries. Among those that struck me most was a trio of woodcuts by the Ukrainian modernist artists Oleksandr Dovhal’ and Sofiia Napelinska-Boychuk. These works represent one of the most significant periods in Ukrainian art history, and through them and the artists who created them, we can tell the story of one of the darkest periods in Eastern European culture.
What is Boychukism?
Following centuries of repression of Ukrainian culture under Russian Tsarist rules, the early years of the Soviet Union were a time of artistic flourishing in Ukraine (as exemplified at the Royal Academy’s Ukrainian Modernism exhibition last year). The ending of Tsarist censorship laws combined with the initial Soviet policies of Ukrainianization meant that the 1920s exist as a rare period of some level of cultural freedom in the history of pre-independent Ukraine. Theatre, literature, and the visual arts thrived, with increasingly experimental style and flair. With the capital of Ukraine having been moved from Kyiv to Kharkiv in 1922, so too moved many of the artists, with the eastern city having become the centre of Ukrainian artistic life.
Perhaps the most influential group involved in the visual arts at this time was the Boychukists, led by the Ukrainian monumentalist painter Mykhailo Boychuk. Spread mostly between the former capital in Kyiv, and the new in Kharkiv, the Boychukists referred to themselves as ‘The Association of Revolutionary Art of Ukraine’ in an attempt to appease the Soviet authorities. Their style attempted to combine references to Byzantine and Rennaissance art with Ukrainian folk traditions and iconography, placing Ukrainian art in the heart of broader European traditions.
However, the rise of Stalin put an end to this brief period of flourishing. Repression of artists increased exponentially. This repression took the form of limitations on what work could be produced — pre-Soviet linguistic policies, for example, were reintroduced, massively limiting any Ukrainian-language works, alongside the introduction of ‘socialist realism’ as the only acceptable artistic style – as well as of the mass imprisonment, deportation, and execution of Ukrainian artists seen to be too ‘nationalist’ or ‘non-conformist’. Stalin’s ascent to power brought with it the increased repression of the Ukrainian peasantry. As a key part of the Boychukist style was a centring of rural life and folk traditions, this meant that their work was particularly targeted, with huge swathes of it destroyed. Boychuk himself was among those killed, having been labelled by Stalin as a, “bourgeois nationalist”.
Oleksandr Dovhal’ and Stable
Oleksandr Dovhal’ was a Ukrainian artist born in 1904 in Delbatseve, in the Donetsk region of Ukraine. He began his studies at the Kharkiv Art Institute in 1922, the same year the capital of Ukraine was relocated to the city, thus placing him at the centre of the new wave of Ukrainian modernism. Although never taught by Boychuk himself, Dovhal’ studied under the monumentalist painter Ivan Padalka, who had been a student of Boychuk’s.
Together with Padalka, Dovhal’ began to gain an international reputation, exhibiting in Venice, and with one of his prints being at some point brought to London, where it was initially bought by the Bloomsbury Gallery as part of a larger collection of Soviet and Eastern European works, who then sold it to the V&A.
The print, entitled Stable, is typical of Dovhal’s style in the 1920s. Signed O Dovhal’, in a conspicuous use of the Ukrainian spelling of his name (as opposed to the Russian, A Dovgal’) the work itself conforms to many of the typical stylistic trends of the Boychuk group, reminiscent of Ukrainian folk art in its depiction of a rural scene and use of bright colours, while maintaining a degree of the abstract. The two-dimensional depiction of the animals is itself reminiscent of Byzantine artworks.
With the rise of Stalin and the beginning of the 1930s, those around Dovhal began to be targeted for repression. Padalka was arrested in 1936 on charges of “counterrevolutionary activities,” before being executed by firing squad the following year. In order to avoid the same fate, Dovhal’ successfully adapted his work to fit the accepted socialist realist style, a decision which arguably saved his life, enabling him to live out the Stalinist regime before he died of natural causes in 1961. Stable is a rare example of his early work, produced at a time of hope for the future. Dovhal’ seems to have made several versions of the work, one of which was exhibited at the Kyiv Art Arsenal in 2018 as part of the BOYCHUKISM exhibition.
Sofiia Napelinska-Boychuk: Girls with book and Shepherd
The Dovhal’ print was acquired alongside two wood engravings by Sofiia Napelinska-Boychuk, Boychuk’s wife, which were also produced in the late 1920s. Girls with book depicts two girls in traditional peasant dress standing in a field and reading, whilst Shepherd shows a man standing amongst sheep, looking up as it appears as though a storm is gathering.
Born in Łódż in 1884 to a Polish father and French mother, Napelinska-Boychuk studied art in Russia and Germany, before meeting Mykhailo Boychuk in Paris, where he was the leader of the artistic group Renovation Byzantine. Together, they moved to Kyiv in 1917, at the height of the Bolshevik Revolution and Ukrainian War of Independence. Having learned Ukrainian, Napelinska-Boychuk quickly assimilated, and worked alongside her husband on the creation of frescoes and monumental artworks across the country, as well as teaching art both in Myrhorod and Kyiv. In her personal work, she also favoured woodcuts as a form (and for a period of time was the head of xylography at the Kyiv Institute of Plastic Arts), with her works also serving as illustrations for the works of Ukrainian poets and writers such as Taras Shevchenko. The two works in the V&A collection are typical of Napelinska-Boychuk’s style, with its focus on the agrarian and peasant scenes.
Following the introduction of ‘socialist realism’ as a state sanctioned style, Napelinska-Boychuk did not conform. Eventually, in 1937, she was arrested on charges of espionage and counter-revolutionary activity, before being shot by the NKVD. During the same period, many of her most impressive, monumental works (often created in collaboration with her husband) were destroyed. She was rehabilitated in 1988, with her art once again being allowed to be shown in the Soviet Union.
The Boychukists’ legacy
These three prints, held in the V&A’s collection, provide a brief snapshot into one of the most vibrant moments in recent Eastern European art history, before it was cut short. The works of Oleksandr Dovhal’ and Sofiia Napelinska-Boychuk epitomise many of the central themes of the Boychukist movement, while also serving as reminders of the fragility of artistic freedom.
The tragic fate of many of the Boychukists, including their execution and the destruction of their monumental works, underscores the risks artists faced under Stalin’s regime. Yet, the surviving pieces, such as those now in the V&A’s collection, offer a window into a period of innovation and hope. They remind us of the invaluable role of art in the preservation and transmission of culture, even through the most turbulent historical moments. As Ukraine’s future remains so uncertain, the need to engage with the country’s cultural history remains as pertinent as ever.
