Russian authorities have provided many Ukrainian artists. Among them is Ilya Repin.
Last week, Finland’s largest art museum, Ateneum, recognized Ilya Repin as a Ukrainian and not a Russian artist. Even six months before the full Russian invasion of Ukraine, the museum, in cooperation with the Tretyakov Gallery and the Museum of Russian Art, held a large exhibition of the artist’s works. Then the conquerors convinced the Finns that Repin was born on the territory of the Russian Federation and was a Russian artist. However, Moscow has traditionally reserved talented Ukrainians.
Russian lie
Because of the controversial exhibition in 2021, the Ateneum contacted Ukrainian activists, reports local publication Suomen Kuvalehti. Museum curator Timo Guusko admits that they lack information about the artist’s extensive connections with Ukrainian culture.
As Ukrainian Pravda.Kultura journalist Anna Lodygina reported, while preparing an article about the artist, she asked for more information about her life in Finland. Then the museum management sent him an article saying that Repin’s parents were Russian and born in the Moscow region. In response, he sent evidence that this is not true – church documents indicate that the artist’s father and grandfather were born in Ukraine.
The decision to change Repin’s citizenship took the Finnish museum more than two years since the first requests after the exhibition in 2021. However, last week Repin, whose works were shown in the permanent exhibition at the Ateneum, was correctly signed as a Ukrainian artist.
Repin or Ripyn?
The national project of Spravzhni in 2022 provided evidence that Russia appropriated the Ukrainian artist Ilya Repin.
Officially, the artist is from Chuguev, Kharkov region. His family, by the way, was quite rich, but over time it found itself on the verge of bankruptcy, so Ilya had to find ways to earn money. Therefore, at the age of 19, he decided to join the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, despite this, he maintained close ties with Ukraine throughout his life.
“Only Ukrainians and Parisians know how to dress with taste! And what ducats, monists, hats, flowers! And what faces! “The artist wrote.
By the way, project experts wrote the artist’s name as Ripyn. It turns out that he signed himself as Repin, and according to the Ukrainian spelling standards of the time, the second letter is read as “at”, that is, ripin.
The artist is a descendant of a Cossack family named Ripa, hence Ripa is Ripyn. Actually, this explains Ilya’s love for Cossack themes. Moreover, he corresponded with his friends in Ukrainian. This is confirmed by the artist’s real letters to his friends – fellow countryman and historian Dmitry Yavornitsky, as well as journalist Vladimir Gitlyarovsky.
To whom did the Cossacks actually write the letter?
Repin’s most famous painting, depicting Cossacks, is The Cossacks wrote a letter to the Turkish Sultan. He considered it his best painting, project experts say.
This painting became a kind of resistance of the artist against the activities of the tsarist government related to Ukraine, and in fact, the Cossacks did not write a letter to the Sultan. The addressee was Alexander II, who issued the famous Emsky Decree in a total ban on all Ukrainians.
The painting reveals many hidden symbols. For example, in the background you can see two folded flags – blue-yellow and red-black, as well as a domra – a musical instrument of the Cossacks, held in the lap of one of the Cossacks.
localhistory.org.ua
The artist died in 1930 at his house Penates in the city of Kuokkala. After the fall of the Russian Empire in 1917, it became a territory of Finland. Later – again on the territory of Russia.
Many researchers of Repin’s life wrote that the artist wanted to return to Ukraine, but the path there was closed for him by the Bolsheviks, and he did not want to return to Russia on principle, even the Soviet authorities really like it.
“As long as the Bolsheviks are in power, I don’t want to have anything in common with Russia,” he wrote in private letters to friends.
Return of Ukrainian art
In February 2023, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York changed the nationality of Mariupol-born artist Arkhip Kuindzhi from Russian to Ukrainian. They also added that the Russians destroyed a museum in his hometown dedicated to the artist.
A few days later, this museum recognized Ilya Repin and Ivan Aivazovsky as Ukrainian, not Russian, artists. In particular, the corresponding marks appeared in the caption on the Repin picture by the writer Vsevolod Garshin and the seascape by Aivazovsky.
And in March 2023, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, which has one of the most complete collections of Kazimir Malevich’s works, changed the captions to information about the abstract artist, calling him Ukrainian.
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Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.