Museum of the Sixtiers Movement as an indicator for the value of the freedom of speech

Thanks to “Vesna” tape recorder that belonged to Ivan Svitlychny voices of Vasyl Symonenko, Mykola Vinhranovsky, and Vasyl Stus could be heard on the radio, TV, and in films. How often do media today use those recordings?

Museum of the Sixtiers Movement is one of the newest museums in Kyiv. It opened just a year ago on August 22. However, the proclamation of the idea of the museum creation and its actual opening were 18 years apart. These were the years of hard and consistent struggle for the opening of the museum of nonconformity and dissidence in the capital of Ukraine.

Currently the collection presented on display and stored in funds includes 20,000 items – paintings, documents, photographs, letters, and personal belongings. Many of these items have been found thanks to the efforts of the present director of the museum Mykola Plakhotniuk. Those materials are used for organizing conferences, academies, roundtable discussions, memorial nights, and art exhibitions. The museum staff told that their regular visitors are Ukrainian young people, interested in the legacy of the Sixtiers, including students of Kyiv universities. Overall, the items presented on display are only a small part of what museum has. The basic archives are stored in museum funds.

According to the concept of the museum, the Sixtiers Movement is viewed as a phenomenon that emerged in society after the 20th Communist Party Congress, when the cult of Stalin’s personality was debunked and his crimes were exposed (at least partially). First sprouts of democracy appeared and this period was called “Khrushchev’s thaw.” At that time the freedom of speech and creative expression was greatly expanded. Creative youth – writers, artists, and scientists, were the first who took advantage of the “thaw.” It became possible to create freely, escape from the clutches of the so-called “socialist realism.”

This caused a true creative explosion in the national cultures of the USSR and Ukraine in particular. There appeared new names in literature: Ivan Dziuba, Ivan Svitlychny, Yevhen Sverstiuk, Lina Kostenko, Vasyl Symonenko, Mykola Vinhranovsky, Ivan Drach, and others. Names of new talented artists like Alla Horska, Opanas Zalyvakha, Halyna Sevruk, Liudmyla Semykina, Sofia Karaffa-Korbut, and Veniamin Kushnir became known…

“We grew from thin mothers in a chopped garden,” Mykola Vinhranovsky wrote about the Sixtiers’ generation.

The Sixtiers immediately started looking for their roots, learned their native tongue, traditions, and art. Every event, which was attended by those, whom we now call the Sixtiers, turned into an extraordinary event, challenge to the authorities.

Mykola Plakhotniuk admitted that today his goal is to make the visitors of the museum feel the spirit of that time, the true value of the freedom of speech. Thus, one of the display windows there is a big official poster announcing the night for the 50th anniversary of the death of Lesia Ukrainka that had to take place on the summer stage of Pershotravnevy Park. Plakhotniuk told: “At first, censorship did not notice that the host of the evening had to be Ivan Dziuba, and the other participants were Lina Kostenko, Ivan Drach, Iryna Zhylenko, and others – all the ‘odious’ names. So, when people started coming for the night on the doors of the summer theater there was a note: ‘Premises under reconstruction’ and lively melodies were broadcast through loudspeakers. Ivan Dziuba suggested to conduct the night anyway on the side alley. People brought benches, which were used as a stage. Young poets came up there and read poems dedicated to Lesia Ukrainka, and dissident actress Tetiana Tsymbal passionately recited poems by Lesia Ukrainka. It was getting dark and the young people began to illuminate the improvised stage with ‘torches’ – rolled newspapers lit on the end. The next day sanctions against participants of this event took place. The banned night in Pershotravnevy Park showed that it was the end of the so-called ‘thaw.’”

The same message can be seen in a painting by Halyna Sevruk called Snowdrops. Young girl (Nadia Svitlychna) barefoot with a bunch of snowdrops in her hands is looking for spring – but there are only mounds of snow and frost all around.

Portable “Vesna” tape recorder stands on a separate podium in the museum. Ivan Svitlychny used it to record the voices of his friends: Vasyl Symonenko, Mykola Vinhranovsky, Lina Kostenko, Vasyl Stus, and many others. Thanks to Svitlychny these recordings survived until present time and are now used on radio, TV, and in films.

Museum also features paintings by Opanas Zalyvakha, Shevchenko’s Portrait and Heretic – applications made with coat fabrics by Liubov Panchenko. The highlight of the collection is the portrait of Vasyl Symonenko made by Alla Horska for the ninth anniversary of his death: sharp lines, drops of blood falling down on the black background look like an illustration of the poetic lines: “I will fall as a drop of blood on your sacred banner…,” and bayonets aimed at the poet’s chest.

One of the walls has drawings, chronicle of the dreadful camp life. These are the art works of Hryhorii Herchak. He was arrested before he turned 18 as UPA contact, was sentenced to death, but later the sentence was changed to 25 years of camps, which he served in full. In the camp Herchak learned to play musical instruments, wrote poetry, and draw.

“We have a flowerbed of plants from Mordovia camp arranged by Nadia Svitlychna, and the one from Buryatia – gift from Yevhen Sverstiuk. In camps women prisoners were allowed to grow flowers and between the rows they planted the forbidden dill, onions, and parsley – this is how they rescued themselves from avitaminosis,” commented Plakhotniuk.

Another highlight of the exhibition is the pieces of percale handkerchief with poetry by Vasyl Stus written on them. “These pieces were rolled and sewn in the skirt of Raisa Moroz, wife of a political convict Valentyn Moroz. This is how she took them to America and published in the magazine Suchasnist during the life of the poet,” said director of the Museum of the Sixtiers Movement. Exposition also features Suchasnist – magazine published in a small format so that it would be convenient to transport it to Ukraine from abroad. According to Plakhotniuk, people read texts with a magnifying glass back then.

The museum has a small collection of personal typewriters, which were used to make underground publications, including typewriters that belonged to Leonid Pliushch, Nadia Svitlychna, and others. “Recently the museum received a typewriter of Matvii Shestopal as a gift. Shestopal was at one time the dean of the Department of Journalism at Kyiv State University and trained a whole pleiad of journalists. He also used this typewriter to make underground publications. It’s a priceless item! Some day we will make and exhibitions of those…” dreams Plakhotniuk.