The painter and art teacher Fedir Krychevsky belonged to a generation of artists who not only created new art on the wave of European modernism, but also helped build a new country, independent Ukraine. Their movement started at the beginning of the 20th century, through the Ukrainian People’s Republic and up to the end of the World War II — undoubtedly difficult times for Ukrainian intellectuals. Their wandering about the world, Ukraine, burnt by the war, their destroyed names and misery…
I will focus on one of Krychevsky’s works that personified Ukraine, carried through time and space in the hearts and works of prominent Ukrainians who had to create outside their motherland. It is called The Scenery of Poltava, and it is exhibited in the Ulas Samchuk Literature Museum in Rivne. The writer, who bought the painting from Krychevsky in 1941, wanted it to be in the museum. Its travels, which started just after it was bought, were described by Inna Nahorna in her small book Transported for Wandering, published in 2010 by the Ulas Samchuk Literature Museum in Rivne.
When he came to Kyiv in 1941, Ulas Samchuk intended to meet the people whose names he associated with the eternal Ukrainian spirit. One of his first acquaintances was Fedir Krychevsky. When the writer saw The Scenery of Poltava in his house, Samchuk, impressed by its monumentality, wanted to own this painting. The canvas was really symbolic as it presented the scenery of Krychevsky’s native village of Shyshaky in Poltava region. By the way, the village of Yaresky, where Dovzhenko shot his film The Earth was located nearby. Some time later this Ukrainian scenery would become the only one that was accessible to Ulas Samchuk during his decades as a migrant.
In his memoirs the writer described in details how he carried this canvas under the rain through the whole of Kyiv during the curfew, risking to be shot by the German occupants or to see the painting ruined by the rain. However, the next day the writer and his wife left the Ukrainian capital and brought the painting with them. It adorned Samchuk’s house in Germany and later in Toronto. Everybody who happened to visit the writer’s house in Canada remarked that The Scenery of Poltava by Fedir Krychevsky was truly amazing, excited deep feelings, and was mysteriously united to Ulas. Not without reason was it symbolic for the writer.
The couple of Yaroslav and Oksana Sokolyk were among the writer’s guests. Yaroslav headed the Congress of Ukrainians in Canada in Toronto. On one of the evenings Samchuk asked them for a favor:
“Can you see the painting on the wall? This is my Ukraine… I believe that the communist rule will soon fall there. We have to be prepared for that…”
So, the writer asked Sokolyks to accomplish his last will: to bring his belongings to Rivne when Ukraine became independent. The Scenery of Poltava, together with his books and other things had to take its place in the museum of Ulas Samchuk’s creative work that they should probably found there… Sokolyks obliged.
Ulas Samchuk passed away in 1987. The Scenery of Poltava “moved” from the writer’s house to his museum, founded by his wife Tetiana on the territory of the Ivan Franko boarding house, where Ulas Samchuk had spent part of his life. However, three years later his wife also died because of heart disease.
Though the petitions for transporting the writer’s property took a long time, his belongings were brought to Ukraine, but the painting disappeared… It turned out that the boarding house director had sold the canvas. The new owner of the painting agreed to give it to the museum in Ukraine after long negotiations. Then there were new problems, including ones with the customs. Finally, in 2008, with the assistance of the former Ukrainian Minister for Culture Vasyl Vovkun and the former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, who visited Canada that year, Krychevsky’s painting came back to Ukraine.
Just as Ulas Samchuk had wanted.
