Homeless

The photograph probably reproduces a painting which, in terms of form, shows the style of Mykhailo Boichuk's circle. However, there are questions as to who the author could be and whether the number "15" on the back is an indication of 1915 (according to the russian-language inscription in purple ink on the back of the photograph: "Homeless 15"). In Antonina Ivanova's practice, works with a pronounced horizontal orientation were found, as well as analogies in the shaping of human body parts (heads, hands, and feet), in particular in the painting from the National Museum of Art "Work in the Field" (dated 1920s). Taking into account the fact that from 1915 there were no more pictorial solutions in the artist's practice – they appeared under the direct influence of the study with Mykhailo Boichuk – we can assume that this work dates from the 1920s and "15" is a serial number applied for unspecified reasons. The type of homeless youths depicted in the painting (peculiarities of clothing and characteristic hats – kartuzy) may be related to the period of struggle against homelessness after the First World War and the Civil War (the maximum figures appearing in various studies are up to 6,000,000 people). This problem was so acute that, together with the consequences of the war, it is considered to be one of the worst social disasters that attempts were made in the 1918s and early 1920s to deal with it, both individually (by the human rights activist and public figure Volodymyr Korolenko and the Children's Rescue League he founded, which was reorganised to include foreign citizens and organisations) and systematically at the level of the Council of People's Commissars and the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (in particular, with the participation of the educator Anton Makarenko). It is worth noting that Antonina Ivanova's archive contains a work, probably by Mykhailo Lezviiev, entitled "A Construction Crew of Homeless People", probably from the second half of the 1920s – early 1930s, which records how the socialisation of formerly asocial people was carried out at the level of practical measures (for more details on the ideological dimension of the issue, see Maro M., The homeless: Sociology. Life. Practice of work / With a foreword by Prof. A. B. Zalkind. – Moscow: Novaya Moskwa [New Moscow], 1925. 454, II pp.). Given the criminal sanctions against the homeless established by law in the russian empire before 1917, it can be assumed that the author repeatedly or even regularly had the opportunity to see such a scene in the late 1910s and early 1920s. However, definitive conclusions and explanations can only be drawn if the location of the original is identified and researched.

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery