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« 2024. # 6 (180)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2024. № 6 (180), 1659—1666

UDK 75.072.2/.3.03.047(477.75):304.4-047.52″20″:008(477)

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/

VOLODYMYR OVSIYCHUK’S CRIMEAN LANDSCAPE. ART AS A DECOLONIAL WEAPON: THE STORY OF ONE LETTER

KOROL’ Sofia

  • ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6763-4938
  • Ph.D, The Head of the Art History Department,
  • The Ethnology Institute National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine,
  • 15, Svobody ave., 79000, Lviv, Ukraine,
  • Contacts: e-mail: artso@ukr.net

Abstract. The proposed article is devoted to highlighting one of the themes developed in his artistic work by the famous Ukrainian art historian, Doctor of Art History, Professor, Laureate of the Taras Shevchenko State Prize of Ukraine V.A. Ovsiychuk (1924—2016), whose centenary of birth we honored this year with a scientific conference, to which this issue of «Ethnographical Notebooks» is dedicated. It is also necessary to mention the exhibition of the professor’s artistic works «Painting by Volodymyr Ovsiychuk. «The World as a Preciousness», which opened in the Museum of Ethnography and Arts and Crafts.

Actually, there is little information about the artistic creativity of Volodymyr Ovsiychuk, even purely chronological and biographical, not to mention attempts at analysis — both from the point of view of the formal and symbolic meaning of the works. As I will try to show in the article, such a perspective exists the more we delve into the material and study the context and establish intellectual connections with the era in which the artist and researcher lived and worked.

The argument of the study is the statement about the relationship between a work of art and memory and identity and those important epistemological changes that arise as a result of the interaction of a person, his thinking (memories, memory, the process of remembering itself) with a work of art.

The methodological basis of the analysis toolkit is the decolonial approach, which undermines the subordination between the Soviet empire and the colonized peoples through the introduction of a value component — art. In the process of creating art, values ​​appear, their perception, possession of them is a symbolic act.

Concerning the topic of the article, the term «decolonization» is proposed to be perceived as the elimination of imposed foreign culture, values, foreign identities, instead — it is a way of self-affirmation, which involves the return of one’s dignity. Because «colonization» actually aimed at violent appropriation or an imposed belief in the a priori imperfection of culture.

Keywords: Crimean landscape, decolonization, Volodymyr Ovsiychuk.

Received 17.12.2024

REFERENCES

  • Said, Edvard W. (2001). Orientalism [in Ukrainian].
  • Kastrissios, Helena. (2023, may 30). Modern Art and Decolonisation: Art as a Decolonial Weapon. Retrieved from: https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4463135
  • «The Empire is Dead». How Contemporary Ukrainian Art Makes Russian Colonialism Visible. Retrieved from: https://life.nv.ua/ukr/art/yak-suchasne-ukrajinske-mistectvo-robit-vidimim-rosiyskiy-kolonializm-doslidzhennya-istorika-50413855.html [in Ukrainian].
  • Larsen, Neil. The Jargon of Decoloniality. Retrieved from: https://commons.com.ua/uk/zhargon-dekolonial-nosti/#footnote-9 [in Ukrainian].
  • Archive of the Ethnology Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Found 1. Case 3. File 430. Personal file of V.A. Ovsiychuk (Excerpt from the Work Book) (P. 15) [in Ukrainian].
  • The outbreak of the Ukrainian sixties in Radomyr Mokryk’s book «Rebellion against the Empire». Retrieved from: https://chytomo.com/spalakh-ukrainskoho-shistdesiatnytstva-u-knyzhtsi-radomyra-mokryka-bunt-proty-imperii/ [in Ukrainian].
  • V.A. Ovsiychuk. On the occasion of his 90th birthday. Interview with O. Som-Serdyukova. Retrieved from: http://irbis-nbuv.gov.ua/cgi-bin/irbis_nbuv/cgiirbis_64.exe?C21COM=2&I21DBN=UJRN&P21DBN=UJRN&IMAGE_FILE_DOWNLOAD=1&Image_file_name=PDF/apmpmn_2014_6_39.pdf [in Ukrainian].
  • Dzyuba, I.M., Zhukovsky, A.I., & Zheleznyak, M.G. (Eds.). Nagayevska Olena Varnavivna. Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine. NAS of Ukraine; National Research School. Kyiv: Institute of Encyclopedic Research of NAS of Ukraine; National Shevchenko Society. 2020. Retrieved from: https://esu.com.ua/article-70843 [in Ukrainian].
  • Usein Bodaninsky. In: Wikipedia. The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Usein_Bodaninsky&oldid=1256126813 [in Uk-ra–inian].
  • Nagaevskaya, E.V. (Ed.). (1968). Bakhchisarai. Travel guide. Simferopol [in Russian].
  • Yatsiv, R. (2004).The Painting Works of Volodymyr Ovsiychuk. The Ethnology notebooks, 3—4 (57—58), 291—292 [in Ukrainian].
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