The last thirty years in the history of modern Ukraine were a time of a major national and cultural upsurge that took place despite all the political and social hardships. First of all, it was manifested in the development of Ukraine's own independent art environment, which was centered partly around its own trends and current issues. Besides, it promoted the formation of a creative community and artistic interaction and the search for an authentic language of self-expression.

This would not have been possible if the artists had kept their distance from the political upheavals in Ukraine over the past decades. Over the years of its independence, the country has experienced three revolutions in a row. The creative sector of Ukraine was directly involved in these events: just as politics frames our whole life, so art cannot exist without politics. And by the creative sector, we mean both professional and amateur artists.

Now, we have an opportunity not only to analyze the features of Ukrainian protest art but also to attempt to rethink and change our view of the processes that were taking place in Ukraine at that time.

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Сontent

• 1990: Revolution on granite
• 2004: Orange revolution
• 2013-2014: Revolution of dignity

1990: Revolution on Granite

On August 2, 1990, 108 students from all over Ukraine went on hunger strike, setting up a camp in the center of Kyiv in former Revolution Square (now Maidan Nezalezhnosti). Soon tens and hundreds of Ukrainian students joined the hunger strike, and rallies in their support gathered tens and even hundreds of thousands of people.

Photo: uinp.gov.ua / politcom.org.ua

At that time, several months had passed since Ukraine had declared its autonomy, but the Communists still retained their power, which significantly slowed the country's journey toward real independence. As a result, the Ukrainian students decided to act more radically to counterbalance the democratic opposition in parliament. They went on an indefinite hunger strike, imposing several conditions on the Soviet leaders — among these, the issue of (non)signing the new Union Treaty and the resignation of the chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR. After 15 days of hunger strikes and active protests, the authorities made some concessions, partially satisfying the demands of the students, but in other respects opting for a compromise.

Photo: radiosvoboda.org

The events were mostly non-violent, despite the shutdown of the USSR State Television and Radio Company, seizure of the main building of the Taras Shevchenko University, the student strike, and confrontation with security forces outside the Ukrainian parliament in the final days of the protest.

During many revolutions of the twentieth century, such as the French revolution of 1968 in Paris or the Chinese student revolution of 1989 in Beijing, at protest marches and rallies, people used posters and banners with slogans and calls to action. 

Similarly, the protest art during the Revolution on Granite was aimed to reveal the sore points of the 1990s Ukrainian society. These included the posters created to show the protesters' attitude toward the Communist faction in the Verkhovna Rada of the first convocation in 1990-1994 (the ‘239 Shame' poster) and monochrome inscriptions on white canvas, consisting of text without any images.

Photo: uk.wikipedia.org

People also made colored posters with illustrations. ‘Have you given up your party membership card?’ is a direct reference to the ‘Have you signed up to volunteer?’ poster created by Dmitry Moor in 1920. The Ukrainian version depicts a Cossack with a Ukrainian flag in his hands, symbolizing a free and independent republic, which will develop without the interference of the Communist parties and the USSR. The Cossack calls for renouncing the membership in the CPSU party because, at the time of the revolution, this party was the only one in the country. And leaving the party also symbolized the rejection of the USSR values, which was the key theme of the Revolution on Granite.

Photo: radiosvoboda.org

The poster 'Boulevard of Shevchenko, not of Lenin' depicts the boulevard itself and a crane removing Lenin's bronze statue from its pedestal. This poster demonstrates the desire of the Ukrainian youth to shed the residue of the Soviet Union and see a truly independent and sovereign Ukraine. The literary legacy of Taras Shevchenko is considered in many ways to be the basis and foundation of the Ukrainian literary language. And many would prefer to live in a more nationalized Ukraine, where streets and squares are named after famous Ukrainian historical figures rather than Soviet ones. After all, for democratically-minded youth, Lenin symbolized the communist stagnation Ukraine experienced for a long time. In 2013, during the last Ukrainian revolution, a disgruntled crowd toppled the bronze monument from its pedestal.

Photo: glavcom.ua

Many posters were created during the 16 days of the Revolution on Granite. Protesters mostly used posters with words at that time. They also create posters with images, but in smaller numbers. This feature of the protest art of that period can be explained by the fact that protests lasted for a relatively short period. Artists did not have the time or ability to create significant, long-lasting artistic compositions that would reflect the main goal of the revolution. Text posters were perfectly suited for campaigning in the square.

Thanks to the effectiveness of this revolution, Ukrainians also took to the streets in both 2004 and 2013-2014, and protest art evolved and took on new forms later.

Photo: uk.wikipedia.org / naurok.com.ua / m.glavcom.ua / istpravda.com.ua / gazeta.ua / radiosvoboda.org

People still remember the events of the First Ukrainian Revolution. For instance, students of the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Fine Arts created a series of works dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the Revolution on Granite:

Photo: ksada.org

2004: Orange Revolution

For Ukraine, the events of November and December 2004 were not just a fight for the election of the country's president but also a battle to choose a system of values. On the one hand, there was integration with Russia and, consequently, an attempt to resurrect the former Soviet Union. On the other hand, people were looking for the European path of democracy, freedom of speech, fair elections, and equality for all.

Photo: suspilne.media

At the end of 2004, the struggle in the streets of Kyiv and other cities of Ukraine was for a better life. As in the Revolution on Granite, the central place of action was the Maidan Nezalezhnosti (lit. Independence Square), which had already acquired new symbolism and lost its old name, the Revolution Square. Hundreds of thousands of people came out daily to the squares of their cities to protest against the falsification of the election results. The persistence and determination of the revolutionaries enabled them to achieve their primary goals. The second vote made it possible to elect a pro-Ukrainian candidate and also prevented any attempts to influence the fairness of the Ukrainians' voting so far.

Photo: news.tochka.net

In contrast to 1990, the artistic scene of the Orange Revolution was more professional and organized. For example, based on the revolutionary events, a group of artists — active participants of the Revolution — decided to found the RES group (Revolutionary Experimental Space). The group was active through the second half of the 2000s, participating in foreign biennales and organizing their own art events.

One of the main features of protest art of this period was the orange color used by the artists who supported Yushchenko. And it was revolutionary artists supporting European values who created the most aesthetically expressive paintings. The revolutionary art scene was filled not only with posters and slogans but also with paintings and caricature drawings that mocked both sides of the aisle.

Alexander Bibik's 'Orange Revolution' depicts a city at night. In the foreground stands a man warming his hands near a barrel of fire, and behind him, on the square, you can see the tents of the revolutionaries. Against the dark sky, veiled by an approaching snowstorm, a huge orange flag proudly flies. It takes a certain artistic skill to create such a piece, and that is what distinguishes the Orange Revolution from the Revolution on Granite. The quality of the protest art of this period is much more pronounced.

Photo: artlib.ru

The 'Orange Painting' by Vladimir Zayets is dedicated to the events of the 2004 revolution and was co-created by 2 004 people. The artist divided the canvas into small squares and invited people to paint in these fragments. This technique provided lots of people with a sense of belonging. Just as a large number of people came together for a common purpose and took to the streets, so here, people came together and created a unique art piece.

Photo: barnews.city

The phrase 'Ne vseremos!' (lit. 'we won't shit ourselves', allusion to Spanish' Venceremos!' - 'we will win') was one of the main slogans of the Orange Revolution. Stands and banners with this inscription complemented numerous posters. Most world revolutions had catchy slogans that united people: 'Liberté, égalité, fraternité,' 'Proletarians of all countries, unite!' and so on. So it was only a matter of time before Ukraine, too, would have a slogan to unite all people demanding changes in the country.

Photo: panic.com.ua

Art was also widely used during the election campaign, mainly in caricatures against particular candidates. Banners with these caricatures could be found all over Ukraine. By the way, such dirty political propaganda became one of the factors for refusing to admit the fairness of the elections.

One of the essential roles in the revolutionary art of that period belonged to the political cartoons created in large numbers by opponents of the Orange Revolution and supporters of the pro-Russian candidate Yanukovich. Such works mostly mocked members of national democratic parties and supporters of Viktor Yushchenko, such as Yulia Tymoshenko.

The main message of the cartoon 'Yushchenko with a naked CIA agent' was that presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko receives funding from the U.S. government.

In general, that hate speech towards Western Europe and America is characteristic of almost all caricatures created by the supporters of pro-Russian Ukraine. For example, the caricature 'Time to Drink Blood' depicts Tymoshenko (you can only recognize her by her hairstyle), who symbolically 'drinks the blood' of Eastern Ukraine. And Ukraine is painted as a cake cut into eastern and western slices.

Photo: klymenko-time.com / frankensstein.livejournal.com / radiosvoboda.org / amnesia.in.ua / tsdavo.gov.ua / pravda.com.ua

2013-2014: The Revolution of Dignity

Precisely nine years after the beginning of the Orange Revolution, on the evening of February 21, 2013, people are coming out to Maidan Nezalezhnosti following the call of public figures and journalists. They are outraged by the sudden cancellation of Ukraine's pro-European orientation and, with it, the commitment to get rid of corruption, nepotism, police lawlessness, and legal nihilism in the country. On the first day, only a few hundred people came to the square. At that time, looking at such a modest number of protesters, it was hard to believe how many points of no return the Ukrainians would have to go through and how it would affect their lives now.

Photo: vg-saveliev.livejournal.com

In two days, tens of thousands of people gather on the streets of Kyiv. After the riot police had beaten up the students supporting Euromaidan from the first days, hundreds of thousands, millions of people took to the streets! However, subsequent events changed the peaceful nature of the protest movement — the government's harsh response to the protests radicalized some of the Euromaidan protesters, and the initially peaceful actions escalated into real fights with security forces on the streets of Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities. The events of the last days of the revolution had a sad finale: more than 100 protesters were killed when the security forces used weapons. The people who gave their lives for their own country were later called the Heavenly Hundred.

Photo: inspired.com.ua

The Revolution of Dignity resulted in the overthrow of the political regime in the country. However, it was followed by the Crimea annexation and an outbreak of a hybrid war in Eastern Ukraine that continues to this day. Ukraine's fight for independence changed the global geopolitical situation most significantly since World War II.

The revolutionary art of Euromaidan differed in its quantity, form, and content from the previous two Maidans, as it was significantly influenced by the nature of the revolutionary events.

It was the longest of the last three revolutions and the richest in terms of artistic means of reflecting reality and expressing one's attitude to political events. Artists did not limit themselves to posters, cartoons, and paintings. They created graphic works, flyers, postcards, performance art, and street art.

Posters. Posters appeared on Euromaidan since the first days of the protests. Although in the beginning, the message of the posters was partly satirical, after the beating of the students on the night of November 30, the number of posters increased significantly, and they started to reflect the events sharply. The revolution's poster art is mostly represented in the Strike Poster community, a platform where every artist could share their work, either anonymously or openly.

In every revolution, political or propaganda posters are one of the primary artistic means of expressing public opinion, as they convey the most vivid appeal or statement that can be understood by a contemporary. In this respect, Ukrainian artists achieved their expressive and technical mastery in the 2013-2014 revolution. There were many different posters with the phrase 'I am a drop in the ocean' during that period. Their main idea was that a single person is only a tiny drop, but if many people come together, everyone is a drop in a huge ocean. Other posters, such as 'Yolki-Palki,' were created to show the harsh attitude of law enforcers toward people who protested on the squares of their towns. In this poster, on a black background, white police batons resemble the Nazi swastika.

There were many posters created in response to certain revolutionary events or cases of police brutality. The vast majority of these posters were made using the colors of the national flag, blue and yellow. Unlike previous revolutions, the posters from this period were much more about encouraging citizens to unite and take to the streets to fight the injustice.

Photo: strikeposter / Ілля Странгоўскі «Вясёлых святаў!» / iлюстрацыя Аляксандры Гадзяевай, прысвечаная першым ахвярам на Майдане

Flyers. In addition to posters, there were also lots of flyers. Often these were artists' sketches and drawings from the site of the protests. The main feature of this kind of protest art is that flyers can be printed at home to hand out to people or use them as postcards. Flyers were mostly black and white.

Photo: «Українська правда»

Street Art. Some of the most notable works in this genre include #Sociopath's triptych' Icons of the Revolution'; Jerzy Konopje's dummy targets in the press and medical uniforms; and Svyatoslav Lavrinenko's graffiti about the violent dispersal of students.

Photo: «Іконы Рэвалюцыі» / «Мішэні» Ежы Канап’е. Кніга «Майдан ад першай асобы» / Святаслаў Лаўрыненка

Paintings. This type of visual art was most strongly represented in the Euromaidan movement. There were so many paintings that we decided to show only the most well-known and notable ones.

Some of the paintings devoted to the revolutionary events were created by artists who saw everything with their own eyes. These were either sketches made directly on the street or complex reinterpretations of what the artists saw there. These include portraits of revolutionaries, panoramic images of the barricades, and multi-figure compositions. Marina Sachenko and Ivan Pishta created their paintings on the streets in the very center of events or from memories and sketches later in the studio.

Photo: «Українська правда» / zbruc.eu / sverediuk.com.ua / музей Рэвалюцыі годнасці

Artists: Алекса Манн / Васіль Карчынскі

Artists: Юры Журавель

Artists: Іван Семясюк (кніга «Майдан ад першай асобы») / Іван Пішта

Artists: Аляксандр Мельнік / Андрэй Ярмоленка

Artists: Іван Семясюк (кніга «Майдан ад першай асобы») / Іван Пішта

Artist: Александр Кам’яхоў (Кніга «Майдан ад першай асобы»)

Artist: Аляксандра Наўроцкая

Also, one of the good ways to draw attention to the works and to the topics raised in them is a kind of 'rework' or reference to well-known works. For example, in creating her graphic images, Alexandra Navrotskaya took the idea of Love is as a basis and changed them. Instead of the famous phrase Love is, she uses 'Euromaidan is...' and complements it with various positive images from the main revolutionary events.

In general, the art of this period is characterized by the frequent use of blue and yellow colors in the works, campaigning calls to the people to go to the squares and streets of their cities. And also the creation of works in all artistic spheres: from posters to performances, which was not the case in the previous Ukrainian revolutions.

Performance. It is quite difficult to define what things could be called a performance, in particular when it comes to the Maidan. Some refer to the pianists playing in front of the police cordon, while others stood in front of them with mirrors instead of posters and appeals. But Taisia Melnyk's actions can be attributed to artistic performances - the performances 'Heroism', 'My still life', 'Irreversibly'. 

Taisia Melnyk about the performance 'Heroism': '... this performance, as I realized later, came (to me) earlier: I saw a reflection of Ukraine in the mirror ... without a specific path ... you know, a nation without a face, of a nation in a state of collapse. I saw, let's say, a mannequin image of a girl with a wreath, with hair, but without a face — just a kind of emptiness in its place.' 

'... here I am walking — and I feel that it hurts so much — it was quite cold, I am barefoot ... you know, after that, I probably felt this pain on my feet for a week — so prickly — from the cold and from the pain of the human . And she remembered how people reacted: they said that Ukraine does not know where it is going...' (both quotes from the book 'Maidan in the first person. Art on the barricades').

All photos of the artist's performances are from the book 'Maidan from the first person':

Таісія Мельнік — перформанс «Гераізм»

About the My still life performance: 'Minus 22. I'm wearing a shirt. I'm walking, my soul is burning — and I'm all in that fire, as in blood. I go, I go, I'm all smeared, I go in... and people just run away from me — they're afraid. And then I go to the barricades, approach the table. There is bread and lard on it, and I make sandwiches out of it. And those sandwiches, similarly smeared with blood, I give them to people. And this is a difference of a few minutes — people take them and eat them. In general, it's very difficult to react and analyze in the moment of an event, usually you do it afterwards, but then it was a crazy revelation for me. When I understand that this eating is our essence, hidden somewhere very deep. And this is the moment of revelation, when people just ran away from you, afraid to get dirty in blood, and immediately they eat it' (quote from the book 'Maidan vid privy osobyy. Art on the barricades').

Таісія Мельнік — перформанс «Незваротна»

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