The matter of development and formation of Ukrainian avant-garde is straightly connected with self-definition of Ukrainian nation. The soul of our society is not only in songs or tunes, but it is also encoded in cultural values of global scale, which include Burliuk, Petrytskii and Malewicz.
The desire of knowing a history of Ukrainian avant-garde art’s formation and development’s lead Zhytomyr citizens to meeting independent researcher Tetiana Filevska and creative director of Ukrainian crisis media-center Olesia Drashkaba in “Lviv Chocolate Workshop”.
Emotional and lively story about Ukrainian avant-garde is redemption of a huge piece of our authentic culture, which has pushed artists and even entire mainstreams to develop.
Destructions of Ukrainian identity have been happening during all Soviet epoch: everything that was out of “baggy-pants Cossacks” or “forgotten villager” was mysteriously wiped out from people’s memories. At the beginning of last century, unique pro-European trend, deep national origins and creating of innovative context in society have made Ukrainian avant-garde a paradigm shift in the worldwide culture.
Experiments on paint, colors and light provided the basis for avant-garde streams. Being generated in conditions of fast-paced technical progress and implementing social-democratic ideas, Ukrainian avant-garde has been developing on patronage background. Sensational fleetness of time and progressive outlook on future life have differed avant-garde artists, who have actively been conveying their wraith.

During its lifecycle, Ukrainian avant-garde has gifted the world not only dozens of famous people, but also various fateful ideas. Who knows that Ukrainian avant-gardist Oleksandr Ekster’s brought innovation in usage of theatrical stage, Vadym Meller’s engendered kinetical performances and Volodymyr Maiakovskii’s made Ukrainian futurist artist Davud Burliuk to be poet?

It was also spoken about Malewicz, who is well-known for being an author of genius “Black Square”, whose work overpasses the time and borders. He was the one who could prove that neither color, light nor shape are perfect in art, that even dot can be a shape as well.
The book “Kazimierz Malewicz. Kyiv period 1928-1930” shows its readers a picture about his living and working times, being an artist, philosopher and architecture in Kyiv. Pleasurable finding was a story about Malewicz noblemen’s genealogy, found in Zhytomyr archive. He has been visiting Zhytomyr very often: Malewicz’s younger sister Viktoria was living here.

Cosmic and revolutionary outlooks and national self-definition didn’t work with totalitarian art theory, so about our Ukrainian avant-garde it was better to forget. However, it’s dangerous to forget about cultural layers; therefore the awareness of being descendants of great artists will definitely move us forward.
Materials used: http://avantgarde.org.ua/
Translated by Aliona Matushevich