A. Ivanova. Petliurivtsi in Ukraine

On the back of the photograph is an inscription in russian, written in purple ballpoint pen: "Ivanova A.M. Petliurivtsi in Ukraine. 1931 Moscow". This work belongs to a relatively small group of Antonina Ivanova's works dedicated to the events of 1918 – the 1920s on the territory of the former russian empire. The artist's husband, Mykhailo Lezviiev, has many more works of this type (for example, Vasyl Chapaiev Beating Kabardian Imperialists, 1933, Workers' Demonstration Being Dispersed, 1930, Bialopolaky in Ukraine, 1930s, Whipping Political Prisoners, 1930s (?), A Construction Crew of Homeless People, 1930s (?), Partisans, 1930s, Bialopolaky (White Bandits), 1934). This group of works by Mykhailo Lezviiev is characterised by a sharp and expressive formal solution, completely different from Antonina Ivanova's more balanced and sometimes static interpretation of the composition. Thus, the event unfolds in a horizontal, narrative format – the Petliurivtsi, or rather the bandits, who are difficult to identify, broke into a private rural house and took away the property of the frightened villagers. In the left part of the composition, one of the criminals is trying to abuse a woman and her child. Although the action is highly dynamic, everything seems frozen in time, as if we were watching a still from a film, with all the possible characteristics of the silent cinema of the time – unnatural and excessive gestures, theatrical facial expressions, etc. It can be assumed that the appearance of this work may have been caused by the need to submit the work to a thematic exhibition so that the situational search for an ideological component also provoked a situational solution, which is generally not typical of the artist's practice. The details of everyday life are noteworthy: the horns around the stove, a bottle of cloudy moonshine with a homemade chop sticking out of the bandit's pocket in the foreground, and a bucket of drinking water on a bench knocked over during the attack.

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery