Activists fight for Ukraine’s disappearing Soviet mosaics

A mosaic from a restaurant called “Aristocrat” done by Alla Horska. Photo by Lyubava Illyenko courtesy of the Soviet Mosaics in Ukraine project.

Observed on the side of residential buildings, the façades of schools and on numerous subway and bus stops, for many, the mosaics are an inherent part of the post-Soviet terrain. But even though interest in them is showing no signs of slowing down, many artworks are fading from the landscape of the former Soviet bloc.

Although Ukraine gained independence over 26 years ago, moves to rid the country of the remnants of its communist-era heritage have escalated only recently. Following the recent wave of protests in 2013-2014, which prompted the destruction of 1,300 Lenin statues, the government introduced decommunisation laws to tackle the removal of anything with Soviet-era ties. The legislation applied to anything from politicians and street names, to pieces of public art such as the mosaics themselves. Often imbued with communist symbolism – from hammer and sickles to depictions of the peasant and the worker – for some, the removal of the mosaics is seen as necessary in a climate of political change.

Cultural value

While some might dismiss the mosaics as sheer propaganda, a cultural platform called Izolyatsia is fighting for their preservation. Members of the group argue that many works are demonstrative of Ukraine’s rich history, made by artists who have fought against the Soviet government, struggled against the Nazis and worked with some of the world’s greats.

Izolyatsia first established the Soviet Mosaics in Ukraine project in 2013. The platform was founded in Donetsk, in the country’s industrial east, where many mosaics were commissioned by the authorities to adorn factories and residential blocks to inspire the workers. While the rest of Ukraine is being “decommunised”, in Donetsk the country’s Soviet past is being preserved. In 2014, when the separatist rebels first declared Donetsk an independent republic, they hung portraits of Stalin in the street. In one interview, the prime minister of the self-declared republic explained: “Our ideology’s abbreviation is SSSR [the Russian variant of USSR], meaning freedom, conscience and justice.” It seems apparent that the driving force behind the preservation of Socialist art stems from a nostalgia for Soviet times embedded in the leadership’s rhetoric.

“These parallels are made for political reasons,” emphasises Izolyatsia’s art historian Lubava Illyenko. But Izolyatsia are not a part of this charade. In fact, the group, who at the time were documenting the Soviet art that the authorities were keen on preserving, were forced to leave Donetsk after their complex was raided by militants, who seized artworks made by various members. “They labelled the work of artists working with us ‘degenerate,’” Illyenko says. The group relocated to Kyiv and continued their work fighting to preserve the mosaics, for cultural as opposed to political reasons.

The history behind who created the mosaics is relatively unknown by many, yet it is intrinsic to their cultural value. When Illyenko first began helping the initiative compile and document monumental art for the Soviet Mosaics in Ukraine website, she began observing that many artists did not have their name next to their work in Soviet history books. Upon further research, it turned out that some artists were in fact dissidents, and so their names had been deliberately left out.

According to Illyenko, the making of the mosaics was not prestigious work. Creating mosaics was a slow process, taking days if not weeks to complete. Artists mostly had to work in the open air, often in harsh conditions in the freezing cold. Unlike their contemporaries who were doing paintings of party leaders, the chances of being featured in an exhibition were zero. It may not be sheer coincidence that the artists who were made to undertake such gruelling labour were also against the government.

Enemies of the state

Alla Horska was one mosaic artist who was often at odds with the Soviet authorities. She signed protest letters against the government and was accused of leading a nationalist organisation. In 1963 she landed herself in further danger when she helped expose unmarked mass graves where the NKVD (Soviet secret police) buried thousands of executed “enemies of the state” in Bykivnya. During this time, the Crimea-born artist was creating mosaics throughout Ukraine.

Like all state-commissioned art at the time, the mosaics were subject to censorship. In one case, Horska was commissioned to do a mosaic for the Kyiv University with several other artists. The group made a stained glass mural of Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko, but when Moscow officials came to review the work, they ordered that it be destroyed for its patriotic nature. Allegedly, the censors thought that Shevchenko looked angry, and were concerned that the bars on the window implied that he was in a prison. Following the incident, Horska was expelled from the Ukrainian artists’ union, which prevented her from continuing her work. When Horska died in 1970, the circumstances were unclear. Many speculate that her end was an unfortunate one, and that she was executed by the KGB.

While many mosaics are typically propagandistic in theme, Horska and many other artists incorporated Ukrainian folk-inspired decorations, motifs and colours into their designs. Inspiration for these can be traced back to Boychukism – a Ukrainian art movement from the 1920s that intertwined national motifs with simple forms. The movement’s founding father, Mykhalio Boychuk, was also declared an “enemy of the state” and was one of a number of artists executed in the 1930s by Stalin’s regime.

Such works of art open significant chapters in Ukraine’s history, not just uncovering protests against the Soviets, but in the struggle against Nazism as well. During the Nazi occupation of Ukraine in 1942, artist Valery Lamakh was captured and sent to Germany as an Ostarbeiter (Eastern worker) in a forced labour camp. During his time there he began reading the philosophical works of Hegel, Kant and Schopenhauer. Allegedly, Lamakh found books by the philosophers after they were left scattered around the ruins of a house that had been bombed. Greatly influenced by what he read, he began writing what would become a five-volume work called the Book of Schemes, in which he applied philosophy and geometry, along with his own cosmological mythology, to various eras throughout the history of art.

Lamakh returned to Ukraine after the war and studied graphic arts in Kyiv. He specialised in posters and monumental art and was soon commissioned for works throughout the country. He continued working on the Book of Schemes for over 30 years, but despite being part of the Soviet intelligentsia, the government would not allow him to publish his ideological writings. To make up for it, Lamakh smuggled his philosophical theories into the mosaics he was commissioned for by the government. According to Lubava, “He was like a philosopher for visual art”, and although he is no longer alive, Lamakh’s work has been referred to in modern-day discussions of how meaningful artwork was conducted despite censorship during the Soviet times.

Embedded ideology

Although some mosaics were made by artists who escaped the Nazis, in today’s media, comparisons between Soviet and Nazi art are frequent. However, Lubava notes that “unlike Nazi art, the implementation of propagandistic art was strongly developed”. The idea to introduce mosaics can be traced back to a letter which Lenin sent Anatoly Lunacharsky (the Soviet Commissar of Education) following the 1917 revolution. In the letter, Lenin outlined his desire to transform the urban landscape into a museum and outdoor school, by lining the streets with grand paintings that educate citizens on the values of communism. The fact that not just professional artists, but also the workers themselves, came together to produce their own “proletarian” kind of art through self-made pieces, made from natural materials such as stone, further prove how deeply embedded the ideology was in society’s psyche.

While artists such as these made works with little or no training, others were working with some of the world’s greats. One of them was Victor Arnautoff, who grew up in the industrial city of Mariupol. After fighting in Russia’s Far East for the Siberian Knights, and later for Zhang Zuolin in China, Arnautoff managed to get a student visa that allowed him to study art in the United States. During his time there he became an assistant to famed Mexican muralist and husband of Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera. Arnautoff then went on to become a professor at Stanford University where he stayed for many years. Following the death of his wife, he returned to Ukraine, settling back in his hometown where he continued to make mosaics.

It is no secret that censorship was rife in the Soviet art world, and all works had to be approved by Ukrainian Soviet authorities, and sometimes Moscow as well. Horska’s Shevchenko mural and Lamakh’s Book of Schemes were just some of the works censored and such measures often came at a high price. One particularly expensive example with regards to decorative monumental art is Kyiv’s memory park and crematorium. The architect decided to keep the work abstract, but later a 200-metre long mural, which would be passed by funeral processions, was added to the design. The development of the Wall of Remembrance took more than ten years, but when it was nearing completion, the Soviet authorities decided to eliminate it, covering the work with cement. When taking into account cases such as these, comparisons between Soviet censorship and the decommunisation process can be hard to avoid.

Following the implementation of the decommunisation law in 2015, many mosaics have been covered up or altered to remove communist symbolism. Others have simply been neglected and fallen into disrepair, while some have been taken away during the destruction or renovation of buildings. Izolyatsia works in collaboration with activists throughout Ukraine to prevent this. Lubava explains, however, that the activists are not interested in glorifying or being nostalgic for the Soviet period like the rebels in Donetsk, but that people are simply interested in changes made to their environment by the council and private landowners.

Lubava says that this attitude is becoming more and more prevalent among younger generations. “They want a more democratic and ‘European’ approach where they have a say in these things,” she says.  For these young Ukrainians, being part of the decision-making process is essential. In one case, activists saw that a mosaic by Horska was being covered with advertising and reported it to Izolyatsia who gathered enough support to boycott it and get it removed. “The impact is on a very small, very local level, but I am still very glad this is happening,” Lubava admits. “We do not think that we are promoting this type of art – we are art historians. We always explain the historic, artistic and cultural value these pieces have.”

A distinct perspective

If mosaics cannot be preserved in their original environment, the Soviet Mosaics in Ukraine project aims to document them before they disappear, so that there is at least a visual record. While those who are reporting incidents of them disappearing to the council are mostly Ukrainians, many of those taking part in the documentation process are from further afield. The Soviet Mosaics in Ukraine project relies on submissions from the public, but has three permanent photographers from Germany, Italy and the United States. Kyle Logan, who hails from the latter, has been living in Ukraine since March 2016. An avid photographer, he seeks out mosaics from all over the country. To him, they are historical artefacts which relay a distinct perspective regarding a range of events, spanning Kievan Rus’, the Russian Revolution and the Second World War. While he believes that many of the art works “fall afoul”, relaying such narratives through the Soviet lens, he does not believe that they should be obliterated altogether. “Like a murder scene, you do not destroy the evidence,” he says.

Although Soviet Mosaics in Ukraine has over 3,000 likes on Facebook and the same number of followers on Instagram, funding has not been easy to obtain. “It is an international foundation and we are always looking for some resources, at least to do some basic things,” Lubava says. In the future, she hopes to launch a mobile app, complete with maps and historical notes. Certain that the mosaics could be “an interesting and authentic tourist resource for every city”, she envisages that there could be a kind of tour, also showing spaces where mosaics used to be, including those that were removed during the first wave of decommunisation in the 1990s. A tool that lets users upload photos of mosaics so that they can be viewed directly online is also on the agenda.

One issue in terms of preserving this kind of art is that it is difficult to simply remove pieces of mosaics and put them anywhere. They were integrated to be synthesised with other different types of design, architecture and art, with each mosaic designed especially for its environment – from its colour, composition and size. It can be argued therefore that displacing them from their original environment is not the best decision.

“Every art historian will tell you that one should preserve the original place and context,” says Lubava. For the moment, the destiny of the mosaics remains uncertain. But perhaps there is hope that these artefacts of Ukraine’s cultural heritage do not face the same fate as the country’s statues of Lenin.

Elizabeth Short is a freelance British journalist focusing primarily on art, culture and politics in Eastern Europe.

Soviet mosaics, Ukraine