Remembering Ivan Franko

In Soviet times, Ivan Franko was lionized as a great revolutionary writer who struggled against the injustices of the Austrian imperial capitalists. His works were carefully edited and his scathing attacks on the works of Karl Marx were completely concealed. Since he was presented as such a socialist hero, Franko himself or monuments to him appeared on Soviet-era postal stationery on numerous occasions. Several of these items appear below.

Figure 1 shows three envelopes with the author's portrait. Figure 2 presents two envelopes that display Ivan Franko statues, the first in Lviv and the other in Kyiv. The aforementioned Lviv monument faces Ivan Franko University depicted in Figure 3. Lviv also preserves Ivan Franko's home, which today is the Ivan Franko Literary-Memorial Museum (Figure 4). Finally, Ivan Franko's distinctive grave marker shows a stone mason, which recalls his famous poem "Kameniari" (The Highway Builders). The figure represents a constructor (the embodiment of Ivan Franko's spirit of hope), who crushes rock in order to level the ground and lay a highway for his descendents to follow as they move to a brighter future (Figure 5).

A Soviet cruise ship was also named after Ivan Franko. Built in 1964 in East Germany, it was one of five such ships that plied the Black Sea. Figure 6 shows the 176-meter-long, 19,861-ton vessel on a 1966 postcard. The ship could carry 750 passengers, but after three decades of service had outlived its usefulness. It was sent to India in 1997 to be dismantled for scrap.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, June 6, 2004, No. 23, Vol. LXXII

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