The unveiling ceremony of a monument to Henrikh Semyradsky took place in his native village of Pechenihy in Kharkiv oblast. It was erected in the yard of the Pechenihy Secondary School. Its authors are Kharkiv-based sculptor Seyfadin Hurbanov and architect Yury Shkodovsky.
Semyradsky’s paintings hang in Europe’s finest galleries. Some of them are also exhibited in the Kharkiv Museum of the Arts. An extremely popular artist of the late nineteenth century, whose works became gems of the best world museums’ collections, academician, professor, full member of the Arts Academies in St. Petersburg, Berlin, Stockholm, Turin, and Paris, he was author of many works on themes from ancient history, early Christianity, and early Rus’ history, which are distinguished by skillful composition and artistic effect. His academic manner, striving for beautiful objects and spectacular plots, anticipated Art Deco. Semyradsky’s creative work is a unique example of academic skill, perfect technique, and high artistic level in the history of Ukrainian arts before the revolution. Yet, during the period of the dominance of ideology and vulgar social approaches to the arts his works were evaluated from contradictory viewpoints.
The 100th anniversary of the artist’s death was also commemorated by an international scholarly and practical conference, Henrikh Semyradsky’s Creative Personality wirthin the Context of Ukrainian and World History, conducted by the Kharkiv Polish Cultural Society in cooperation with the Pechenihy District Administration, Kharkiv Arts Museum, Kharkiv State Academy of Design and the Arts, Kharkiv Karazyn National University, and Kharkiv State Korolenko Scientific Library under the patronage of the Kharkiv Oblast State Administration and Kharkiv State Council within the framework of the Days of the European Cultural Heritage. The conference was sponsored by the Fund to Assist Poles Living in the East (Poland) and Association of National (Minority) Cultural Societies of Ukraine.
