Exhibition of graphic works by Yurii Ivaskiv took place in the House of Scientists. The author, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor of the National Aviation University presented nearly 70 sketches to the public. These works are not simply amateur sketches but a result of travels around the Soviet Union for half a century from the 1960s until 2010. It is as if a fixation of moments in life of the former Soviet Union.
At the end of the week Ivaskiv called the editor’s office of The Day and invited to come and view the exposition. We were intrigued by the fact that a person who worked for 40 years as a fellow researcher at the Hlushkov Institute of Cybernetics, NAS of Ukraine, managed to combine love to mathematics and art in him.
Would you please tell us about how a cyberneticist became a graphic artist?
“I often had business trips to conferences and symposia all over the Soviet Union. When academic part was done I spent my free time drawing sketches. Or other times while the delegation takes their seats on the bus I have time to make a sketch.
“I also hitchhiked a lot together with my wife. At first I became a tourist and only later I became an artist. I have a rule: travel a lot and never go twice to the same place.
“In the end of the 1960s exhibition of amateur artists took place in Kyiv. I sent there my paintings from the Solovki series that featured the pier from which a boat with unfortunate people leaved to Solovki. I remember when I put the sketches in front of the jury and they asked me: ‘Why are they all so gloomy? We are having an exhibition devoted to the 50th anniversary of the Soviet power and probably won’t take paintings of prison buildings.’ I answered to that: ‘Then we could change the name to Architectural Monuments of the Northern Russia.’ So we agreed on that. After that exhibition I was offered to study at the evening department of the Kyiv Art Institute. By that time I had already defended my thesis and decided not to fritter away my strength and now feel very sorry about that.”
Which of the displays presented at the exhibition you are most proud of?
“Of course, these are not all of my works, there wouldn’t be enough walls to present them all. Here you can see Ukraine, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Finland, and Baltic countries… However, the sketches from the Carpathians Series are most precious for me. I remember that for our honeymoon me and my wife went to the Carpathians. Here is the Crimea – Chaliapin Grotto and the house of Maximilian Voloshin. Well, and for some time I was in Solovki. At first I was there as a tourist and later I went there to earn money to buy an apartment – in the team of ‘students’ I was building housing for local residents.”
Thus, you really know Solovki very well. The Day announced 2012 to be the Year of Sandarmokh List. Of course, shooting Solovki prisoners who were there in custody at that time and those were mainly the best representatives of Ukrainian intelligentsia is not merely an event from the past but something that greatly influenced our present. What is your opinion on this?
“What was the purpose? Ukraine was the breadbasket. People bothered Joseph Stalin, he wanted to destroy the population and settle Russians there instead. Sandarmokh was the realization of that project. Holodomor of 1932-33 was an act of genocide against Ukrainian people. Sandarmokh was one as well. Nation without intelligentsia is not a nation but simply people. Thus, Ukraine fell behind in its development a couple centuries back. In general, intelligentsia – those few hundreds of people, is formed throughout hundreds of years and in order to restore it lots and lots of time is needed. In my opinion, shooting in Sandarmokh was not simply a crime against people but an act of genocide of Ukrainian people. The best men of Ukraine died there. Les Kurbas… he created a theater in Solovki, a newspaper and a magazine was made there. There were such great personalities there like Mykhailo Drai-Khmara and Mykola Zerov. They had a student Hryhorii Kochur. I’ve been friends with him for many years. I would often ask him: ‘Hryhorii where did you spend those 10 years?’ ‘Well, where – in the Komi Republic.’ ‘How did you manage not to freeze in there?’ ‘Books and magazines from Ukraine warmed my heart’ I would like to thank The Day for approaching such issues. It is a great newspaper. It deserves to be awarded Taras Shevchenko Prize because it forms the world view of the nation. If there were no newspaper The Day, Ukraine would be different.”
