New museum in Kharkiv honors leader of cultural renaissance (10/06/96)

New museum in Kharkiv honors leader of cultural renaissance

by Assya Humesky

KHARKIV - A museum honoring Serhii Pylypenko, a leading figure in the Ukrainian cultural renaissance of the 1920s, opened in the Kharkiv State Academy of Urban Planning on August 28 as part of the program of the third International Congress of Ukrainian Studies.

The museum was dedicated not only to Mr. Pylypenko himself but also to his family, his wife Tetiana Kardynalowska, a pedagogue, writer and translator whose memoirs "The Ever Present Past" were published in Kyiv in 1992; his daughter Assya Humesky, a professor of Slavistics at the University of Michigan and the current president of the American Association of Ukrainian Studies; and his other daughter Mirtala, a sculptor and a poet who donated her sculptures to the Kharkiv museum as well as to the Kyiv Ukrainian Home and the National Gallery in Lviv.

After brief introductory remarks by the vice-president of the Kharkiv Academy, Iaroslav Isaievych, president of the International Association of Ukrainian Studies, addressed the audience, emphasizing the importance of the return of Mr. Pylypenko's name to the history of Ukrainian culture.

Two speakers from the diaspora, Lubomyr Hajda, associate director of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, and Frank Sysyn, director of the Peter Jacyk Center for Ukrainian Historical Research in Canada, warmly reminisced about the Pylypenko family whom they knew from their Harvard student days.

They spoke of the role model which people like Ms. Kardynalowska and her daughters represented to them, people who persevered against all odds after Mr. Pylypenko's arrest in 1933 - the Russian exile, the deportation for forced labor by the Germans, the DP camps in Italy, the difficult beginnings of emigré life in the United States.

The director of the museum, Tatiana Ieliseieva, spoke next about Mirtala Pylypenko's artistic career and outlined the lifework of her mother and sister.

Olha Riznychenko of the Museum of Literature, a specialist in the Ukrainian literary period of the 1920s, gave an analysis of Mr. Pylypenko's achievements as the head of the literary association Pluh, the editor-in-chief-of the State Publishing House, the founder of the Shevchenko memorial museum, the author of 30 books of verse and prose.

Touching on the controversy between Mr. Pylypenko and Mykola Khvyliovy, Ms. Riznychenko noted that the two men were not antagonistic in their views on the basic aims of Ukrainian literature and culture in general. Both were Ukrainian patriots; they differed only in the ways they saw Ukrainian literature should work to achieve that goal. Furthermore, the speaker noted, Mr. Khvyliovy was a rebel by nature; his was a talent of opposition, and the groups that formed around him were all short-lived. Mr. Pylypenko, on the other hand, was more positive in his approach, and it was thanks to his talent as an organizer and his human concern and desire to assist that many future prominent Ukrainian writers had their start.

The opening ceremony was attended by many who had come to Kharkiv for the third congress of Ukrainian studies. Among them were Assya Humesky and her Kyivan cousin, Roksalana Kardynalowska, who as a child grew up in Mr. Pylypenko's family in Kharkiv. Unfortunately, Mirtala Pylypenko, whose sculpture exhibit was part of the museum, could not come to Ukraine at this time.

In some ways, it was a miracle that the museum opened at all. There were tremendous financial difficulties that had to be overcome by the administration of the academy. Recognition and gratitude are due to Leonid Shutenko, president of the academy, to his staff, especially Pavlo Ivanchenko and Ms. Ieliseieva, as well as to the people from the Museum of Literature, Iryna Shumilin museum director, and to Mr. Riznychenko, museum staff member.

Thanks are due also to Anatoliy Pererva, the poet who emceed the opening ceremony and recited his poem dedicated to Ms. Pylypenko. And, last but not least, great thanks go to Olha Isaievych, the Ukrainian representative of the Sabre Foundation, without whose help Ms. Pylypenko's sculptures would never have made it to Ukraine across the ocean.

The opening of the museum was televised and shown on the evening news, while several local newspapers, including Vechirniy Kharkiv, reported on it. The museum is now open to the public, and students can visit it, without charge, twice a week. There are plans to enlarge the museum's collection by adding more archival materials.

Thus, Mr. Pylypenko's memory has finally been restored to the Ukrainian people.