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« 2026. # 2 (188)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2026. № 2 (188), 413—422

UDK 73/76:003.64:929

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/

  • Received: 12.02.2026
  • Accepted: 11.03.2026
  • Published: ??.??.2026

BETWEEN NAME AND SIGN: THE SIGNATURE IN THE SELF-PRESENTATION OF OPANAS ZALYVAKHA

BABII Nadiia

  • ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9572-791X
  • DSc in Art Studies, Professor, 
  • Vasyl Stefanyc Carpathian National University,
  • 57, Shevchenko St., 76000, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine,
  • Contacts: e-mail: nadiia.babii@cnu.edu.ua

Abstract. This publication continues a series of the author’s studies dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of the dissident artist Opanas Zalyvakha. The aim of the article is to analyze his authorial signature on works of art. This graphic sign is examined from the perspective of a communicative strategy of self-presentation: as an act of identifying the artwork, a sign of the «author’s presence», and an inseparable unity of the visual sign and its semantic content. Particular attention is paid to the issue of the artist’s punctuation. The methodology is based on a combination of axiological, cultural, art historical, and hermeneutic approaches. The source base of the research includes paintings and graphic works by Opanas Zalyvakha and nonconformist artists, including Alla Horska and Viktor Zaretskyi, published in monographs, catalogues, and presented at exhibitions.

For the first time in Ukrainian art history, the authorial signature is analyzed through the prism of a phenomenological approach as a subjective act of the author’s presence and a demonstration of identity transformation within the artistic text. It is determined that a personal signature is a recurring form of writing one’s name that demonstrates a chosen model of behavior and significance. The signature is formed within the space of culturally approved possibilities. It is proven that in Zalyvakha’s oeuvre, changes in the signature reproduce stages of identity transformation within his own artistic text. For the artist, the change of signature was neither accidental nor an unconscious stylistic transformation. Rather, it was an inevitable consequence of a value-based choice, the result of the interaction between individual thinking, stylistic influences, and cultural context. Taken together, this allows his authorial signature to be defined, from an art historical perspective, as an integral phenomenon of self-presentation through art. An additional finding is the identification of later markings of his paintings with the signature «O. Zalyvakha».

Keywords: artist’s signature, signature, symbol, sign, visual art, self-identification, Opanas Zalyvakha, Sixties movement, nonconformist artists.

REFERENCES

  • Dictionary.cambridge.org. (n. d.). Signature. Retrieved from: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/signature.
  • Nagler, G., & Andresen, An. (1881). The monogrammists and those known and unknown artists of all schools…: with consideration of printers’ marks, the stamps of art collectors, the stamps of old goldsmiths and silversmiths, of majolica factories, porcelain manufactories… News about painters, draftsmen, sculptors, architects, engravers…Munchen: Hirth [in Deutsch].
  • Chilvers, I. (2009). The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists. Fourth edition. Oxford University Press. 
  • Sharl Bodler, & Valter Beniamin. (2017). The Parisian Spleen. Essay. Kyiv: Komubuk [in Ukrainian].
  • Boden, Margaret A. (2010). Creativity and Art: Three Roads to Surprise. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press. 
  • Schultheis, F. (2018). The Artist is Absent: the Artist as Creativity Entrepreneur and Changes in Representation and Practices of «Art». Journal for Art Market Studies, 2 (4). Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.23690/jams.v2i4.47.
  • Rohotchenko, O. (2025). Sixty Totalitarian Years: Visual Arts of Ukraine. Kyiv: Lira-K. [in Ukrainian].
  • Skliarenko, H. (2020). Ukrainian Artists: From the Thaw to Independence: in 2 books. Book One. Kyiv: Hass [in Ukrainian].
  • Lozhkina, A. (2019). Permanent Revolution. Ukrainian Art of the 20th and Early 21st Centuries. Kyiv: ArtHuss [in Ukrainian].
  • Quora. What is the significance of an artist having a signature? Retrieved from: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-significance-of-an-artist-having-a-signature.
  • Zalyvakha, O. Hook waterfall, 1958. Retrieved from: https://gs-art.com/auctions/classic-contemporary-art-50/catalog/12294/ [in Ukrainian].
  • Zalyvakha, O. Teahouse, 1965. Retrieved from: https://gs-art.com/auctions/underground/catalog/7383/ [in Ukrainian].
  • Sheko. Record of interrogation of the accused Afanas Zalyvakha dated October 4, 1965.. 4.10.1965. Ukrainian Liberation Movement. [manuscript]. Retrieved from: http://avr.org.ua/viewDoc/29545?locale=en [in Ukrainian]. 
  • Horska Alla. Retrieved from: https://archive-uu.com/ua/profiles/alla-gors-ka [in Ukrainian].
  • Exhibition «ProZori». Retrieved from: https://www.uadim.in.ua/podiyi/prozori [in Ukrainian].
  • Karazub, I. U An exhibition dedicated to the centenary of the 1960s artist Opanas Zalyvakha opened in Frankivsk 13.03.2025. Suspilne. Retrieved from: https://suspilne.media/ivano-frankivsk/970055-u-frankivsku-vidkrili-vistavku-do-storicca-hudoznika-sistdesatnika-opanasa-zalivahi/ [in Ukrainian].
  • Slapchuk, V. The national image of the world in the work of poets of the sixties (M. Vinhranovskyi i A. Voznesenskyi). Lutsk: Vezha-Dr [in Ukrainian].
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