A Cultural Revival

The 1920s marked a powerful revival of Ukrainian culture. Literature, theater, music, cinema, painting, philosophy — all flourished. The Ukrainian language, long banned, returned to public life. An independent Ukrainian church was founded.

On May 22, 1919, Metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivsky held the first liturgy in Ukrainian at St. Nicholas Cathedral in Kyiv. Composer Mykola Leontovych, author of the world-famous “Shchedryk,” wrote the music for the service and personally conducted the choir. People wept to hear prayers in their native tongue: “Enslaved children praying in freedom.”

Ukraine lived with hope. But this hope was short-lived.

 

The Turn to Repression

On April 26, 1926, Stalin wrote to Kaganovich, calling the Ukrainian cultural movement “anti-Russian.” From then on, any effort to strengthen Ukrainian national identity was branded “counterrevolution.”

In 1929, the secret police fabricated the “SVU trial” — the Union for the Liberation of Ukraine. Newspapers spoke of a “nationalist underground,” but it was pure invention. Its true purpose was to intimidate intellectuals: any word against Russification, even in private, could be fatal.

Historian Eduard Andrushchenko notes:

“It was a clear signal. If you dared to speak out — even in private — you would share the same fate.”

 

The Logic of Terror

By the 1930s, terror engulfed everyone. Many still believed that loyalty would protect them. But soon the rules vanished. The Great Terror struck both the loyal and the disloyal. There was no rational logic left.

As Andrushchenko explains:

“No one could feel safe. Even those who had served the regime for years became its victims.”

 

Fates of the Repressed

Anatoliy Kostenko, a writer and literary scholar, was arrested in 1937 and sentenced by an NKVD “troika” to ten years in the camps.

Friedrich Franz, a German colonist, was tortured into naming dead neighbors as members of a “fascist organization.”

Volodymyr Yurynets, a philosopher, and Anton Onyshchuk, an ethnographer, were forced to fabricate denunciations — then arrested and executed themselves.

 

The Boichukists

A particularly tragic story was that of artist Mykhailo Boichuk and his school. Boichuk created a unique Ukrainian style, blending Byzantine iconography with European modernism. His followers, the Boichukists, dreamed of a national art movement.

In 1936–1937, they were accused of terrorism and belonging to a “fascist organization.” Under torture, they were forced to “confess” to absurd plots — such as blowing up a monument to Shevchenko.

On July 13, 1937, Boichuk and his students were executed. Their paintings were confiscated, rolled up, and condemned as “valueless.” Many were destroyed; only a few survived, hidden by museum workers.

Artist Yaroslava Muzyka-Stefanovych concealed Boichuk’s canvases within the walls of her apartment, for which she herself was arrested in 1948. His wife, Sofia Boichuk, was executed simply for being his spouse.

 

The Lypkivsky Family

The story of Metropolitan Vasyl Lypkivsky and his family is no less harrowing. His son Ivan became a painter and a student of Boichuk. He was arrested in 1936 and shot in 1937.

Vasyl himself, despite an invitation to lead the Ukrainian Church in Canada, chose to remain in Kyiv. In November 1937, he was condemned and executed, alongside 86 others that night. Nearly the entire family was destroyed.

His daughter-in-law, actress Kateryna Osmyalovska, played the lead in “Natalka Poltavka,” the first Ukrainian sound film — screened even in New York. But while audiences applauded, her family members were tortured in NKVD cellars.

 

The Atmosphere of Fear

Newspapers and radio demanded: “Crush the enemies!” The terrified people, deceived and broken, shouted for executions — to drown out their own fear.

In Bykivnia Forest near Kyiv, tens of thousands of those executed in 1937–1941 were secretly buried. Today, its martyrology lists writers, scientists, philosophers, artists, priests.

When archives briefly opened during perestroika, they revealed the magnitude of the tragedy. But many files had been “cleaned”: denunciations and secret reports removed to hide the true mechanics of terror.

 

The Executed Renaissance was not only the tragedy of individuals. It was the deliberate destruction of a whole generation that could have defined Ukraine’s cultural future.

Books, paintings, plays, philosophical works — annihilated along with their creators. Yet some risked their lives to save manuscripts and canvases. Thanks to them, we know today: Ukraine had its own Renaissance — and it was executed.

It was the murder of the future. And it reminds us now: until such crimes are named and condemned, they can happen again.