Геннадій Гриценко Hennadiy Hrytsenko

Due to my monumental work, I was invited by Kyiv monumental artists to join a group… There was a commission in Donetsk to decorate… an experimental school, a very large one, with mosaics: a central grand panel, 100 meters [wide], and eight side panels. I was invited to take part in this work. There was a group. It was led by Halyna Zubchenko. She invited Alla Horska, the well-known artist Hryhoriy Synytsia, and from Ivano-Frankivsk, Ivan Kulyk and Oleksandr Korovai. These were beautiful, renowned artists from [Ivano-]Frankivsk. We worked there for two years. I worked there for two years. I was acquainted with Alla Horska. Through her, I met the Sixtier artists, including [Vyacheslav] Chornovil and the Horyn brothers, [Mykhailo and Bohdan]. I received great support from Leonid Cherevatenko — he was twice the head of the [Kyiv City Organization of the National] Writers' Union [of Ukraine], he supported me greatly. A panel was created that became quite well-known. But while in Donetsk, we engaged in theoretical discussions, developing Ukrainian art. We came to the conclusion that Ukrainian art should develop in monumental forms. The theorist was Hryhoriy Synytsia. The concept was that art should be monumental, it should be modern, and in form, it should be entirely Ukrainian. Both national, modern, and monumental. This was the concept we carried forward in our personal and monumental art.

I was in the village, while my mother remained in Zaporizhzhia. When the front was approaching our village, the Germans burned it down. Torchbearers were going around. There was a great harvest that year. We had an enormous haystack. All the houses were straw-thatched. I remember the torchbearers in black uniforms walking around with torches, setting fire. They burned down our… That deeply affected me — I remember being in so much stress. There was a small bush. It was the steppe. A few sunflowers were growing. I hid there with a cow, holding the cow by the chest. We hid the cow because they were shooting… They shot at the cow, and I was right beside her. The bullet hit the cow, right here. They shot the cow while I was beside her. That’s what we went through — the burning of the village, World War II. When the front passed, all the men were taken to the front. Very, very few returned because they were sent to assault the Dnipro. Very, very few came back.

It was in Kyiv that I met a Lviv… she had just arrived while I was at Alla Horska’s apartment, at [Viktor] Zaretsky’s. The one who came to visit them was Sofiya Karaffa-Korbut, a well-known graphic artist from Lviv. We became friends. I was working on Khortytsia, and she was interested in Cossack themes. She wrote me many letters. She invited me to the Carpathians. I went to the Carpathians with Oleksandr Korovai. We were in Dzembronia at the time, and Lviv artists had gathered there, including [Roman] Turyn, as I recall. That’s how I got acquainted with the Lviv Sixtiers.

I was a member of Rukh [People’s Movement of Ukraine], even heading a section. The city movement was led by Borys Holodiuk. He made a great contribution, but over time, people seem to forget about him. He had health issues. Still, he should be remembered with kind words. When events were unfolding in Georgia and the Baltic states — tanks were deployed and all that — the guys called me in. By then, I was already older. It was my 61st [year of life]… I was around 60 years old. They came to me as an elder and asked, “What to do?” Tanks had been deployed in Ivano-Frankivsk, and there had been bloody events in the Baltics and Georgia. The same was being prepared for us. We came to the conclusion that we needed to gather [the military] and talk to them. In Rukh, in the city branch of Rukh, near the fountain — that’s where Rukh was… And here was the corps headquarters [at the time, the 38th Combined Arms Army of the USSR Armed Forces] in Ivano-Frankivsk. It was an elite corps. We summoned the command, and about twenty colonels showed up. The first time we invited them, they rolled out tanks… probably not everyone was eager to fight. In the end, they agreed to negotiations because no one knew exactly what we might say. I was asked to speak. I only said three sentences. I said, “We know there are tanks stationed.” I said, “We also have our own units.” At that, they flinched. Then I said, “You have families here too, let’s live peacefully. What grievances do you have?” We also invited the deputy [head] of the regional administration [at the time, the regional executive committee]. One [of the military men] spoke, “You know, what you’re doing here is outrageous — our bathhouse hasn’t been repaired.” Another stood up and said, “You know, we don’t have a road near our garage. No matter how much we ask, you never help us.” This [deputy head of the executive committee] took notes on a number of issues. A fourth officer stood up and said, “We haven’t been allocated garden plots.” The [deputy] wrote that down and said, “Come back in a week — we’ll take care of everything.” He added, “These aren’t major issues…” As we left, two colonels walked out ahead of me. One said to the other, “These are our enemies, but they’re very smart people.” They left. Some of their leadership stayed behind. We decided to write an article for the newspaper. A short notice was published, stating that Prykarpattia was declared a zone of peace. They didn’t deploy any tanks. No blood was shed.