Arkhihum: Twenty Years of Laughter

On April 1 the Kyiv Arkhihum Club will open its traditional exhibition of caricatures at the Architect’s House, gathering the best satirical artists. This year marks Arkhihum’s twentieth anniversary. The jubilee promises to be a special one, with all club contributors of the past two decades expected to show up. Their works will not only be displayed on the walls, but will also appear in a special album, Arkhihum: 1983-2003.

When I first chanced upon the Arkhihum exhibition I was dumbfounded by a flood of incisive, shocking, and often openly defiant cartoons. Mind you, this was 1985, the early days of glasnost and perestroika when all of the underground was still hidden from public view in basements. Meanwhile, the Architect’s House officially sanctioned this display of black humor and anti-Soviet sentiments to suit all tastes. Kudin, Kazansky, Kosobukin, and Kazanevsky seemed like giants and titans to me. It was they who penetrated my consciousness to such an extent that I could no longer imagine my life without Arkhihum. In fact, in the eighties it was a club for only the select few, an intellectual alternative to the official humor streaming from Perets [pepper] (a magazine of cartoons of educational and propagandist content like linking Ukrainian nationalists and Zionists as lackeys of American imperialism — Ed.). Initially, club cartoonists gathered at the Architect’s House every month and their annual exhibitions in April caused great public excitement. Mass media representatives would elbow their way to the Arkhihum like some rock concert. By all accounts, Arkhihum cartoonists were stars, that is, the best. They have been often called this at international cartoon contests where they won first prizes without too much trouble. In Ukraine, their cartoons have been always popular with newspapers and magazines and displayed at various houses of culture and exhibitions, by no means in Kyiv only. The popular Day of Arts on Andriyivsky uzviz was a big event in the early days, with Arkhihum exhibitions its big attraction. I remember very well Yury Holovchenko, who worked double-quick drawing his Cat on the Chimney, as there was a great demand for his cartoons, Vitia Kudin, who churned out dozens of impromptu caricatures, Serhiy Aleyev with his gallery of cartoons featuring sculptures of famous people, Tolia Kazansky with his phantasmagoric performances, and, of course, the aftertaste of coffee with cognac from a thermos brought by the wife of Zhenia Hryhoriev. We felt like miners, chipping away at the concrete wall of the glorious Soviet prison cell, working our way out into the open air. Arkhihum was an oasis of freedom for all of us. For to make people laugh is humane. Long live the Arkhihumanity with pepper (a reference to Ukrainian pepper vodka —Ed.)! Arkhihum’s satire is always spicy.