The city should remember

Andrii PASHCHUK: “Ukraine has not yet fully developed the numerous mechanisms necessary for functioning, especially in branches of science and culture, let alone managing the country’s international image. It sees the Ukrainians scattered across the world as sponsors rather than as an important basis for spreading Ukraine’s positive image in the world.”

Not only does every city have its own history, it also has its own mentality, psyche and culture. The rationality of New York can be found in the names of its streets: twelve avenues longwise Manhattan and over 200 numbered streets – crosswise. Figures, calculations and expediency dominated in the minds of those who founded and planned Manhattan, the megalopolis’ central borough. Of course, there are streets with names other than numbers, like Broadway, Amsterdam, Riverside, Morningside or Manhattan. However, even the names of Columbus Street and the University of Columbia have no relation to the Spanish explorer. People’s names are only found on building walls: Andersen Hall, Thompson College… Even the opera house and museum, of which the city is justly proud, are called Metropolitan, i.e. belonging to a capital.

Ukrainian traditions are anthropocentric, at least in topographic names, which is no surprise: the historical and cultural traditions of Ukrainian cities stretch over long periods of time: even the river flowing across Kyiv and falling in the Dnipro is called Lybid. Khoryva Street and the Shchekavytsia Hill also embody our ancient history. Kyivans reside on deep and rich archeological layers: the place located on the steps of the Dnipro, with its broad and beautiful panorama, has been attracting people for thousands of years. This is not only because in ancient times people’s aesthetic feelings did not fail them, but also because the climate of the city standing on the Dnipro, unlike NY, is much more favorable for people. Street names carry the names of people who have glorified their nation and humankind through their creative work or victorious struggles.

OLEKSANDR ARKHYPENKO

Oleksandr Arkhypenko (1887-1964) was born in Kyiv to an inventor-engineer – an employee of the Kyiv University. His grandfather was an icon painter. He studied at the Kyiv School of Arts. At the age of 20 he left Kyiv for Moscow, where he continued his education in private studies. In 1908 he went to Paris, where he settled in the community of artists and joined the ranks of the young artistic geniuses. He is called the founder of cubism in sculpture.

Arkhypenko made his first works out of fire clay, or chamotte: since his childhood he remembered the work of folk potters, and, as a young man, became enchanted by archeological findings of the Trypillia culture and Scythian stone sculptures. Researchers believe that this special gift – to see the object’s essence and generalize the shapes – was the result of those impressions. During his whole life Arkhypenko took interest in ancient cultures from around the world, especially those he saw on display in the halls of the Louvre Museum. In 1912, Guillaume Apollinaire, sensitive to his talent, wrote, “First of all, Arkhypenko seeks purity in shape. He was educated in the best traditions. The magic of his works is in their inner harmony. His works breathe the religious tendencies that have formed his temperament. As a child he must have been enchanted by the church and naive works.” Arkhypenko was an innovator: he was among the first to use the expressive possibilities of the empty form, a “negative space.” He wrote about his discovery in the following way: “Voids are perceived as a symbol of absence of shape and become a ground for generating associations and developing the sense of relativity.”

Arkhypenko did not only create, he also founded schools in different countries. In 1923, after an exhibit tour across European cities, he moved to the US. There he continued to experiment, striving to merge painting with time and space. In 1924 he invented a specific kind of art and called it “arhypentura”: narrow colored stripes moving with the help of a complicated mechanism, creating compositions, a sort of a mechanical display. He anticipated the kinetic art of the late 20th century. Arkhypenko’s works are kept in the world’s most prestigious museums and galleries.

Kyivans take a great interest in the sculptor’s personality: there is even an association of Arkhypenko’s admirers. For his 110th anniversary a monument called Awakening, executed by the sculptor Valiev, was erected on Pushkin Street, 42. Several years ago, the Ukrainian Art Museum held an exhibit of his works – for the first time in Ukraine.

Andrii Pashchuk, the head of the Advisory Council of Directors at the Ukrainian Institute of America since 1991, is petitioning to name one of Kyiv’s streets after the world renowned sculptor. Arkhypenko kept in touch with his fellow countrymen. Andrii Pashchuk once took a photo of the artist while working. Arkhypenko liked the photo and he said, “Be my photographer!” Unfortunately, he died shortly after. The magazine Obrazotvorche mystetstvo (Imitative Arts), Issue 2, 2006, published an article entitled “Arkhypenko and Hryshchenko in Andrii Pashchuk’s Photos,” which also included that photo.

Pashchuk has sent letters with a proposal to name one of the streets in Ukraine’s capital after Arkhypenko to the Kyiv State Administration. He received a reply to his appeals: in 1998 the head of the department of preserving monuments of history, culture and the historical environment Kukharenko wrote that Arkhypenko’s name had been included on the reserve list of names. He also received positive reponses from Omelchenko and Chernovetsky. In 2006 Chernovetsky assured him that “the question will be certainly considered as a top priority matter and you will receive an additional report on this.” The decision was opportune because 2007 marked the 120th anniversary of Arkhypenko’s birth. However, four years have passed and still no results. Perhaps, they don’t know that Oleksandr Arkhypenko is one of the most renowned artists worldwide.

When Pashchuk told Dmytro Pavlychko about his idea to name a street after Arkhypenko, the poet strongly supported it and presented a sonnet dedicated to Arkhypenko and the following words are part of it.

He cuts women,
Of sadness, not bronze.
A touch of mind
Helps to reveal
His perfect silhouettes
Moulded of nothing.

Kyiv continues to lack a street named after its famous citizen. Pashchuk explains this by the fact that the young state has not yet fully developed the numerous mechanisms necessary for functioning, especially in branches of science and culture, let alone managing the country’s international image. It sees the Ukrainians scattered across the world as sponsors rather than as an important basis for spreading Ukraine’s positive image in the world.

“The name of Oleksandr Arkhypenko, which has been violently disrooted from the Ukrainians’ memory, is now an important reason for our culture’s remorse. Tribute to this cosmopolitan has become a confirmation of our creative forces, a ground for self-respect. For a culture that is not striving to reach worldwide recognition is doomed to become a provincial one.” The author is at one with these words of Andrii Shestakov, the author of the article “Oleksandr Arkhypenko, a Genius Among 20th Century Sculptors.”

IHOR SIKORSKY

Ihor Sikorsky was born in the village of Antonivka in Skvyrshchyna to a Ukrainian Orthodox priest Oleksii Sikorsky. He was an outstanding scholar, a professor who authored over a hundred works, one of which – on the upbringing of children – has been repeatedly republished as a textbook for students. Apparently, Ihor inherited his thirst for knowledge and creative abilities from his father. Sikorsky received his main education at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, but studied at the Naval Military School in St. Petersburg and a French technical school earlier. In Kyiv he matured as an aircraft designer: it was at the Kurenivka airfield, on June 3, 1910, that Sikorsky first flew on a plane he designed. Several years later he established the world’s first records in airspeed, and on March 14, 1912 he set a record for flying with four passengers at a speed of 106 kilometers per hour. The same year he moved to St. Petersburg, where the Russian Baltic Carriage Plant opened an aircraft department, building new machines based on his designs, namely the multi-engine plane Russky Vitiaz and the four-engine plane Ilya Muromets, on which Sikorsky flew to Kyiv from St. Petersburg in 1914, launching the epoch of the world transport aircraft. In 1918 the plant stopped producing aircraft, and Sikorsky reached the US through Finland, England and France. There he founded his own aircraft manufacturing company, the Sikorsky Aicraft Corporation, in 1923. In 1937 Sikorsky designed and constructed a giant flying boat which carried out the world’s first passenger transportations across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. In 1939 he created his first helicopter, creating an entire industry of helicopter construction. The results of his works in the US include 15 kinds of planes and 18 kinds of helicopters. Nowadays Sikorsky’s business is managed by his sons.

However, one should remember that the genius inventor realized his first ideas and first attempts in Kyiv in the early 20th century. The renown and world recognition of the genius aircraft designer are indisputable. Unfortunately, hardly anyone abroad knows that Sikorsky was a Ukrainian and that the genius’ roots are in Ukraine. In 1933 he wrote to Vasyl Halych, “My family, which comes from a village in the Kyiv region, where my grandfather and great grandfather served as priests, is entirely of Ukrainian origin.”

Pashchuk appealed with a proposal to name the Boryspil airport after the renowned aircraft designer Ihor Sikorsky (1889-1972) to the head of the KMDA Chernovetsky on April 15. A similar letter, dated April 26, 2009, was sent to Ukraine’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the US Shamshur. The author of the letter wrote, “The renowned inventor and helicopter constructor Ihor Sikorsky was born in Kyiv, where he made the first steps in creating aircraft. The impact of creations on air transport is testimony to his greatness. Sikorsky’s name should be returned to Kyiv, and the most natural thing would be to name the Boryspil airport after him. This is the way the city should honor its great fellow countryman. This has not just a moral, but also economic aspect, as it will show the world that Ukraine has had and still has great potential, and there are people to prove this.”

The proposal was accepted. Ukrainian authorities have already resolved the question on establishing a house-museum dedicated to Sikorsky, and in May 2008 a monument in his honor was erected on the territory of the Kyiv Polytechnical University.

It is now just a question of time: the revamp of the airport is being pursued, and the name of the great aircraft designer of world renown could become an adornment to the restored Boryspil.