Kharkiv in Focus

They say that the dead remain alive as long as they are remembered by the living. Otherwise their names sink into oblivion. And so events, people, and their images on canvases and photos seem to be born anew, conveying to posterity invaluable information about something that will never happen again. The photo exhibit “Kharkiv: The People, the City, and Time” features copies of photos of Kharkiv and its residents, which were taken before the revolution, covering the period from the 1860s until 1917. Volodymyr Ohloblin, the curator of the photo exhibit and a well-known city art photographer, says that Kharkivites were seeing most of the 150 photos on display for the very first time. Setting up the exhibit took almost five years, as it was very difficult to locate old photographs. For the first time works created by more than thirty photographers from Kharkiv oblast were gathered under one roof. All the photos are truly unique, showing Kharkiv the way it was and will never be again.

Volodymyr Ohloblin has been working in the field of art photography for the past 20 years, yet when he came across several old photos taken by the prominent art photographer Ivanytsky, he says he felt a pang of professional envy. He also says that no one takes pictures that way now. For example, at one time Ivanytsky’s photos of a tsarist-era train crash were flashed across the world. Later, a wooden hermitage named for the Savior was erected on the crash site. The photographer was not spared the horrors of the revolution, and he vanished in the spring of 1919. Only a year ago it was learned that he was executed in December 1920, sentenced to death by a triyka, an “Extraordinary tribunal of three.” Ivanytsky’s private archives were confiscated by the Cheka and vanished in the 1930s. Only a few photos have miraculously survived.

Among the photos on display are scenes from the lives of individuals representing various social strata. One photo shows picnicking army officers and shows wine, food, and glasses. Another shows picnicking proletarians. Here everything is simpler: vodka instead of wine and tin cups. Another portrays celebrated intellectuals attending Prof. Sumtsov’s birthday party. The atmosphere is perfectly “respectable.”

Kharkiv history and human destinies little known to the general public are the topic of another exhibit entitled “Kharkiv. Nostalgia,” featuring documents, photos, diaries, and archival letters. Bits and pieces of forgotten facts and fragmentary recollections are used to restore scenes from the lives of various families representing various social strata. Tetiana Babina, director of Kharkiv’s cultural center Syryn, said that her staff had long dreamed of telling residents about their city’s past. The authors of the project conveyed the atmosphere and spirit of the time in the form of collages and installations. Unfortunately, few personal effects have survived the ravages of time. Apart from forgotten people, the exhibit features anonymous portraits of well known personalities and a number of photos not meant for public display, because they were exclusively from family albums. One such photograph shows Mykola Barabashov as a small boy. Both Kharkiv natives and visitors to the city are familiar with this academician after whom Ukraine’s largest market is named. Female intellectuals set a special tone in the life of Kharkiv society. The Syniakov sisters were known not only for their beauty, but also for their intellect. Those women possessed the remarkable gift of attracting creative persons. Many poets visiting Chervona Poliana, where the sisters’ home was located, fell in love with them and dedicated poems to them. Vira Abramovska, art director of the Syryn Club, has boldly concluded that futurism was born in Kharkiv, because all the futurists would visit the city and write their poetry here. Judge for yourself: Boris Pasternak was in love with Nadia Syniakova, while the poet Nikolay Aseyev loved Oksana, who was his muse and wife. The youngest sister, Vira, conquered the hearts of the noted futurist poets Velimir Khlebnikov and David Burliuk. Vladimir Mayakovsky was smitten with the eldest sister Zinayida.

Faces, destinies, and age-old histories flash past visitors’ eyes, and one realizes how important memories are for people. Local collectors and descendants of noted Kharkiv personalities contributed practically all the photos, which were reproduced for the exhibit. Among them are photos of Beketov, Bahaleyev, Ivanytsky, Derybo, and many others.

An exhibit entitled “Kharkiv the Way It Was, the Way It Is, the Way It Could Be” came especially close to the people. The organizers set up an open-air display of unique photos of the old and present-day city, arranging them on stands according to a “Before” and “After” scheme. Here everyone can stop to take a closer look at a photo and spot familiar streets that still exist. Many photos have no captions, causing visitors to frown in concentration, trying to identify localities that have drastically changed over the past hundred years. Kharkiv residents generally believe that a single sketch portraying a future Kharkiv does not resemble the city and is rather featureless. They have a far more colorful vision of their future.