Pablo Picasso, when he saw Kateryna Bilokur’s works in Paris, exclaimed, “She is a genius. If we had an artist of her scale, we would have made the entire world speak about her!”
Kateryna Bilokur lived for her entire life in the village of Bohdanivka, Poltava gubernia. Already a famous artist, when she answered the questions about the conditions of her creative work, in particular, her studio, she said, “What studio? This is a usual village house. Am I an artist? I am a Cinderella. I rake out the fire, fire a furnace, tend my old mom, take care of the goat, chop the wood – and while I am doing this, I come up with unseen abundant pictures. And they stay in my dreams.” She asked the then party leadership to give her a corner in Kyiv, to be able to paint far away from her mean daughter-in-law. The answer was, “Let her stay where she is.”
And in the 21st century, when Kateryna Bilokur is no longer with us for almost 54 years, and her pictures have found a permanent place in Kyiv, and not in some corner, but in a large hall, near Great Lavra Bell Tour in the heart of Kyiv. Her spirit goes wherever it likes. The bright image of the artist was turned to life by Olha Samolevska’s film Kateryna Bilokur. A message that has been screened in many big movie theaters of Kyiv. Recently a cinema evening in commemoration of the master has been held at Taras Shevchenko Museum. For her entire life Kateryna Bilokur aspired with her thoughts to Kobzar. It can be said that she was connected with him, reread his verse, quoted his poems, and at a crucial hour rushed to him to Chernecha Hill to ask for advice.
After the film the audience stayed for a while in Shevchenko Museum. A well-known Ukrainian poet and film director, a winner of prestigious awards, participant of Maidan, Stanislav Chernilevsky called the film Kateryna Bilokur. A message one of the most outstanding works of Ukrainian cinematography.
The personality of Kateryna Bilokur has not been fully estimated by her contemporaries. The 19th century presented us with Lesia Ukrainka, whereas Kateryna Bilokur is also a leader of our nation, but from the 20th century.
There was a full house at the soiree dedicated to Kateryna Bilokur in Lesia Ukrainka Museum. Guests from the Kyiv oblast, Cherkasy, Bohdanivka where the artist’s house is always open for visitors have come to the event. Kateryna Motrych, a well-known writer who reads Kateryna Bilokur’s letters in the film, has come to Kyiv as well.
Philosopher Yevhen Sverstiuk wrote a foreword to the film Kateryna Bilokur. A message for the employees of American company UATV LLC, for the demonstration of the film in Diaspora. At both soirees the voice of unforgettable Sverstiuk was heard: “This film is an amazing parable about the indestructibility of God’s gift and indestructibility of beauty. And also about the fact that a mean spark will burn a field and disappear. The philosophy of the film can be generalized like God preserves things He creates.”
We would like our home to be peaceful and full of optimism. But we are paying a dear price for our freedom. There are wounds in the country and wounds in our souls.
Film director Olha Samolevska says, “I have had great doubts concerning the soiree dedicated to the artist, when the soul is uneasy, and all our thoughts are in the burning east of torn Ukraine, where people, birds, and animals go crazy because of infamous Grads, unending blasts reinforced by security sirens, where thousands of bodies and hopes have been torn to pieces, where the moonlit landscape of the Donetsk airport is gaping. But we must assert life and commemorate our leaders for this. Ukrainians have never attacked anyone, we can be proud of the morals of our nation. We do not consider fuehrers as geniuses – we bow before the genius workers of culture. We have people to rely on and things to defend.”
